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Wm  !  SY     C  A R  LO  s  M  a  rtyn 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Blake  R.  Nevius 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


L^nnyi// 


SHU*' 

U8L 


Uo  tbe  Congreoatton 

of  Ipl^moutb  Cburcb,  aBroofebgn,  tbts  %ife  of  tbeir  afirst  ipastoe 

ITs  2>eDicateJ>, 

witb  JDeep  ano  ©rateful  B&miration  of  tbeir  "(Unswerving 

Devotion  to  Ibim  in  tbe  Uime  of  Ibis  Sorest  Urials,  ano 

witb  an  Equally  Goroial  appreciation  of  tbeir  IRoble  J>art 

in  tbose  Services  to 

Cbrist  anfc  Ibumanfts, 

wbicb   are  llmmortallv.   associates 
witb  tbe  "Maine  of 

Ifoenrs  Marfc  Beecbet\ 


PREFACE. 


Carlyle  has  called  Shakespeare  "  the  best  head  in 
six  thousand  years." 

To  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  more  frequently  than  to 
any  one  else,  has  the  epithet  Shakespearean  been 
applied  by  men  widely  acquainted  both  with  the 
poet  and  with  the  preacher. 

The  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church,  the  most  brilliant 
and  fertile  pulpit-genius  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  the  most  widely-influential  American  of  his  time, 
lived  so  varied  a  life,  and  one  so  replete  with  impor- 
tant incidents,  that  it  has  been  no  holiday  task  to 
compress  into  the  compass  of  this  volume  what 
needed  to  be  written  in  order  to  furnish  an  adequate 
picture  of  this  many-sided  and  almost  myriad-minded 
man. 

I  have  aimed  to  give,  in  swift,  flowing  narrative, 
the  story  of  his  spiritual  inheritance,  his  interesting 
early  development,  his  various  achievements,  sorrows, 
and  triumphs.  Though  "  the  life  of  such  a  man  is 
the  life  of  his  epoch,"  I  have  not  fully  described  all 
the  reform  movements  through  the  midst  of  which 
flowed  the  current  of  his  career.  The  main  theme  of 
this  book  is  Mr.  Beecher's  richly-endowed  person- 
ality, and  to  a  large  extent  he  has  been  allowed  to 
speak  for  himself. 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

The  materials  which  I  have  found  at  hand,  and 
which  I  have  been  kindly  permitted  by  authors  and 
publishers  to  use,  have  been  exceedingly  ample. 
The  Rev.  N.  D.  Hillis,  D.D.,  of  Evanston,  Illinois,  is 
the  possessor  of  perhaps  the  completest  Beecher 
library  in  the  country,  and  this  has  been  kindly 
placed  at  my  service.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  had  the 
fortune  to  have  more  things  written  about  him  than 
any  other  of  his  contemporaries,  unless  we  except 
Lincoln  and  Gladstone. 

No  brief  sketch  is  so  satisfactory  as  that  given  by 
Mrs.  Stowe  in  "  Men  of  Our  Times"  (Hartford  Pub- 
lishing Company,  1868).  In  the  "  Life  of  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,"  by  her  son,  Charles  Edward  Stowe 
(Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company,  1889),  are  many 
notices  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  which  are  valuable 
to  his  biographer. 

The  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  by  Abbott  and  Halliday 
(American  Publishing  Company,  Hartford,  1887), 
contains  an  important  sketch  of  Mr.  Beecher  by  Dr. 
Lyman  Abbott,  his  successor  in  Plymouth  pulpit 
and  in  the  editorship  of  The  Christian  Union,  now 
The  Outlook.  It  contains  also  many  reminiscences  by 
Rev.  S.  B.  Halliday,  Mr.  Beecher's  beloved  assistant 
in  the  pastoral  work  of  Plymouth  Church.  This 
book,  moreover,  is  valuable  on  account  of  the  numer- 
ous contributions  by  distinguished  contemporaries  of 
the  pulpit  orator.  I  have  made  occasional  use  of 
these  analyses  and  reminiscences,  for  the  reason  that 
Mr.  Beecher  can  be  adequately  appreciated  by  those 
cnly  who  realize  what  a  profound  impression  he 
made  on  various  gifted  minds.  This  life  is  also  en- 
riched by  many  of  Mr.  Beecher's  characteristic  utter- 


PREFACE.  ix 

ances,  and  contains  a  brief  account   of  his  closing 
years. 

The  chief  storehouse  of  knowledge  concerning  this 
remarkable  man  is  found  in  the  "  Biography  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,"  by  William  C.  Beecher  and  Rev. 
Samuel  Scoville,  assisted  by  Mrs.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  (Charles  L.  Webster  &  Company,  1888,  now 
owned  by  Bromfield  &  Company).  In  the  notes  I 
refer  to  this  book  as  the  "  Biography."  It  should  be 
read  by  all  who  are  interested  to  possess  a  full  ac- 
count of  Mr.  Beecher's  life  as  seen  by  his  own  house- 
hold. In  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  for  1891-2,  Mrs. 
Beecher  has  furnished  a  series  of  pleasant  papers  on 
"  Mr.  Beecher  as  I  Knew  Him."  They  are  full  of  in- 
teresting anecdotes,  for  a  few  of  which  I  have  been 
able  to  find  room  in  this  volume. 

"  The  Autobiography  and  Correspondence  of  Ly- 
man Beecher,"  two  volumes,  edited  by  Charles 
Beecher  (Harper  &  Brothers,  1865),  must  be  carefully 
read  by  all  who  wish  to  understand  what  Mr.  Beecher 
inherited  from  his  remarkable  ancestry. 

In  the  Preface  to  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  by  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  (New  York  :  Fords,  Howard  &  Hul- 
bert,  1887),  there  is  an  admirable  and  discriminating 
review  of  Mr.  Beecher's  personality  and  influence  in 
public  affairs,  by  John  R.  Howard.  The  "  Life  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  by  Joseph  Howard,  Jr.,  and 
"  The  Life  and  Work  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  by 
Thomas  W.  Knox,  contain  miscellaneous  information, 
not  elsewhere  found.  "The  History  of  Plymouth 
Church,"  by  Noyes  L.  Thompson  (New  York:  G.  W. 
Carleton  &  Company,  1873),  ^s  not  without  use  to 
the  student  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life. 


X  PREFACE. 

The  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  compiled  and  edited  by 
Edward  W.  Bok,  gives  a  great  number  of  contem- 
porary tributes,  some  of  which  the  writer  has  found 
of  interest  and  value.  Joseph  Parker's  "  Eulogy  " 
(New  York:  Bachelder  &  Company,  1887),  is  a  mag- 
nificent tribute  to  the  genius  and  character  of  his 
illustrious  friend. 

A  chief  source  of  our  knowledge  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  is  the  books  which  he  published,  or  which 
friends  have  compiled  from  his  writings  and  ad- 
dresses. Foremost  among  these  I  mention  "  The 
Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  which  remain  unsur- 
passed in  suggestiveness  and  stimulating  power;  the 
"  Lectures  to  Young  Men,"  "  Plymouth  Pulpit  Ser- 
mons," "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  containing  the  com- 
plete publication  of  Mr.  Beecher's  most  important 
speeches  on  subjects  connected  with  slavery  and  the 
Civil  War;  "Evolution  and  Religion,"  "Norwood," 
"Comforting  Thoughts,"  "A  Book  of  Prayer," 
"Royal  Truths,"  "  Beecher  as  a  Humorist,"  "A  Sum- 
mer in  England  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  "Bible 
Studies,"  all  of  them  published  by  Fords,  Howard  & 
Hulbert,  and  two  volumes  of  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons, 
edited  by  Lyman  Abbott  and  published  by  Harper 
Brothers.  The  English  publication  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
sermons  (London:  R.  D.  Dickinson)  has  been  placed 
at  my  service  by  the  kindness  of  Dr.  Hillis,  and  also 
the  sermons  delivered  during  the  last  year  of  his  life 
and  published  in  The  Brooklyn  Magazine. 

Probably  the  most  famous  of  the  compilations 
from  Mr.  Beecher's  works  is  "  Life  Thoughts,"  which 
had  an  extraordinary  sale.  An  interesting  selection 
from  his  writings  is  "The   Crown  of  Life"  (Boston: 


PREFACE.  Xi 

D.  Lothrop  Company),  with  Introduction  by  Rossiter 
W.  Raymond.  This  Introduction  contains  the  best 
account  ever  given  of  some  of  the  peculiarities  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  mind,  particularly  its  periodicity.  Mr. 
Raymond  explains  how  Mr.  Beecher's  fruitful  genius 
remained  dormant  or  inactive  except  at  special  re- 
curring times,  and  how  he  brought  about,  with 
astonishing  regularity,  these  periods  of  creative  pro- 
ductiveness, which  seldom  lasted  more  than  a  few 
hours,  but  which  he  was  usually  able  to  make  syn- 
chronous with  his  Sunday  services. 

Some  of  Mr.  Beecher's  very  best  writing  is  found 
in  the  "  Star  Papers,"  first  and  second  series,  arid  in 
"The  Life  of  Jesus,  the  Christ,"  the  first  volume  of 
which  was  published  by  J.  B.  Ford  &  Company,  1871, 
and  the  second  by  Bromfield  &  Company,  1891.  The 
"  Prayers  from  Plymouth  Pulpit  "  (A.  C.  Armstrong 
&  Son)  must  not  be  omitted  by  any  student  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher. 

There  have  been  many  other  volumes,  besides 
addresses,  pamphlets,  reviews,  and  newspaper  articles 
which  I  have  consulted,  and  which  have  thrown  im- 
portant side-lights  on  Mr.  Beecher's  career. 

While  a  student  in  the  Union  Theological  Semi- 
nary in  1868  and  1869,  it  was  my  good  fortune  to  be 
a  listener  to  his  preaching,  and  in  what  I  have  written 
of  his  unsurpassed  pulpit  eloquence  I  have  freely 
drawn  on  my  own  vivid  recollections.  Mr.  T.  J. 
Ellinwood,  who  for  so  many  years  reported  Mr. 
Beecher's  sermons,  has  very  kindly  sent  me  a  number 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  unpublished  sentences.  Mr.  N.  D. 
Pratt,  of  Chicago,  a  valued  friend  of  Mr.  Beecher, 
has  very  courteously  allowed   me  the  free  use  of  his 


Xll  PREFACE. 

unpublished  reminiscences.  A  number  of  friends 
have  furnished  unpublished  letters  of  interest  and 
incidents  connected  with  Mr.  Beecher's  remarkable 
personality. 

"  Biography,"  says  Mr.  Lowell,  "  in  these  communi- 
cative days  has  become  so  voluminous  that  it  might 
seem  calculated  for  the  ninefold  vitality  of  another 
domestic  animal  than  for  the  less  lavish  allotment  of 
man."  I  hope  that  this  book  will  seem  to  many  of  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Beechertoo  short  rather  than  too  long. 
If  it  shall  be  deemed  by  those  who  were  personally  fa- 
miliar with  him  a  truthful  picture  of  this  wonderful 
man,  and  if  my  estimate  of  his  character  and  genius, 
and  of  the  influence  of  his  teaching,  shall  commend  it- 
self to  the  judgment  of  fair-minded  Christian  readers, 
I  shall  be  greatly  pleased.  I  shall  be  still  more  pleased 
if  this  account  of  a  richly-gifted,  heroic,  and  much- 
suffering  servant  of  Christ,  and  apostle  of  humanity, 
shall  kindle  in  other  hearts  a  new  faith  in  that  Divine 
Redeemer,  who  was  the  strength  and  glory  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  great  career. 

JOHN  HENRY  BARROWS. 

Chicago,  August  ist.  1893. 


CONTENTS. 


Preface vii-xii 

CHAPTER  I. 
The  Flower  of  New  England  Womanhood. .........  1-7 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  King  of  the  New  England  Pulp?t 8-17 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Nurse  of  His  Childhood 18-27 

CHAPTER  IV. 
"The  Father  of  the  Man  " 28-35 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Boy's  Peril  and  Escape 36-43 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Amherst  College  and  Her  Greatest  Son 44~54 

CHAPTER  VII. 
In  the  Great  Valley  of  Decision 55—68 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Testing  His  Weapons 69-79 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Indianapolis.     The  Western  Evangelist 80-91 

CHAPTER  X. 
A  Sick  Household.     A  Strong  Pulpit 92-103 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Call  to  Brooklyn.     Early  Revivals 104-116 

CHAPTER  XII. 
A  Historic  Church 117-131 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Private  and  Peaceful  Ministry 132-144 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Revivals.     Nature.     Music 145-155 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Causes  of  Popularity  and  Unpopularity 156-162 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
The  Battle  for  Freedom 163-178 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
The  Glue  of  Compromise,  a  Quack  Cement 179-188 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
A  Light  in  America's  Dark  Age 189-199 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
The  Irrepressible  Conflict  Continues 200-206 

CHAPTER  XX. 
"The  Pilgrims  on  the  Kansas  Prairies 207-214 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Republican  Party  and  Its  Great  Leaders 215-226 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Truth  on  the  Scaffold,  Wrong  on  the  Throne 227-238 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Beecher  the  Emancipator 239-246 


CONTENTS.  XV 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Steering  by  the  Divine  Compass 247-257 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Before  the  Great  Storm 258-265 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
A  Great  Leader  in  a  Great  Crisis 266-272 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
Toiling  for  Liberty  and  the  Union 273-286 

CHAPTER   XXVIII. 
"  You  Wonder  Why  We're  Hot,  John  ?  " 287-296 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
Conquering  the  Mob 297-308 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

The  Heart  of  Bruce  Returns  to  Scotland 309-319 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

"  I  have  fought  with  Beasts  at  Ephesus  " 320-329 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

The  American  Demosthenes  Triumphs 330-344 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
The  Great  War  Drama  Ended 345-355 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
Blessed  are  the  Peacemakers 356-362 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
In  Labors  More  Abundant 363-371 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 
Sunshine  Before  the  Storm 372— 379 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 
The  Long  Darkness 380-390 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

The  Son  of  the  Righteous  Delivered 391-398 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

A  Multitude  of  Counselors 399-4-13 

CHAPTER  XL. 
The  Shadow  Lessening 414-419 

CHAPTER  XLI. 
New  Light  on  Old  Problems 420-428 

CHAPTER  XLII, 
Pulpit  Thunderer  and  Plumed  Knight 429-434 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 
Last  View  of  the  Old  Battlefield 435-441 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 
Night  Cometh  and  the  Eternal  Morning 442-449 

CHAPTER  XLV. 
"This  Was  a  Man  " 450-477 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 
The  Eloquent  Orator 478-489 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 
He  Preached  Christ 490-512 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

"Securus  Judicat  Orbis  Terrarum  " S^-SSQ 

Index .,,.,,, --,., 53i-54i 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    FLOWER   OF    NEW    ENGLAND    WOMANHOOD. 

More  than  three-fourths  of  a  century  have  rippled 
'  into  the  silent  hollows  of  the  past "  since,  in  the 
hamlet  of  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  when  the  morning 
twilight  of  September  was  awaking  the  bird-songs  in 
the  elm-trees,  a  saintly  woman,  the  flower  of  New 
England,  told  her  weeping  companion  that  Heaven 
drew  near,  and  that  its  glories  were  almost  over- 
whelming to  her  soul.  On  her  death-bed  she  dedi- 
cated her  sons  as  missionaries  of  Christ,  and  her  dy- 
ing hope  was  fulfilled,  as  all  of  them  became  minis- 
ters of  the  Gospel.  She  told  them  that  God  could 
do  for  them  more  than  she  had  done,  and  that  they 
must  put  their  trust  in  Him.  In  her  last  moments, 
her  husband  repeated  to  her  the  words,  "  But  ye  are 
come  unto  Mount  Zion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  liv- 
ing God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumer- 
able company  of  angels,  to  the  general  assembly  and 
church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  written  in  Heaven, 
and  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of  just 
men  made  perfect,  and  to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the 
new  covenant,  and   to  the   blood  of  sprinkling,  that 


2  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

speaketh  better  things  than  that  of  Abel."  Then  in 
perfect  and  cloudless  peace  she  fell  asleep. 

Forty-seven  years  after  the  sods  of  Litchfield  had 
closed  over  the  dust  of  Roxana  Foote  Beecher,  an 
old  man,  who  had  once  been  the  king  of  the  New 
England  pulpit,  but  who  had  long  been  awaiting  his 
departure,  lay  on  his  death-bed,  in  his  house  on 
Brooklyn  Heights.  Arousing  from  his  death-torpor 
and  kindling  for  a  moment  with  the  old  electric  fire, 
he  cried  out,  "  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  fin- 
ished my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith:  henceforth 
there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness,  which 
the  Lord,  the  righteous  Judge,  shall  give  me  at  that 
day."  And  soon  after  this,  a  solemn  and  divine 
radiance  illumined  his  venerable  face,  and  he,  too,  had 
gone  to  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first- 
born and  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  Jesus  the 
mediator  of  the  new  covenant. 

Roxana  Foote  and  Lyman  Beecher  inherited  the 
best  qualities  which  have  ever  ripened  on  the  fruitful 
soil  of  New  England  Puritanism,  and  they  bequeathed 
to  their  greatest  son,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  a  bodily 
vigor  which  excesses,  unless  they  were  excesses  of 
cerebral  excitation  in  public  speaking,  never  impaired, 
a  rollicking  good  nature  which  was  like  the  summer 
sunshine  playing  over  garden  and  field,  a  profound 
melancholy  which  led  to  occasional  morbid  estimates 
of  himself,  a  genius,  quick  and  powerful  to  discern 
the  loftiest  truths,  a  passionate  devotion  to  God's 
children  from  the  highest  down  to  the  lowliest  of  them 
all,  a  muscular  and  elastic  intellect  of  prodigious 
creative  power,  a  wit  that  flashed  like  the  lightning 
through  the   clouds  and  was  often  accompanied  by 


THE    FLOWER   OF   NEW    ENGLAND    WOMANHOOD.  3 

thunder-blasts  of  righteous  wrathfulness,  and  an 
imagination  which  transformed  Heaven  and  earth  into 
a  radiant  procession  of  pictures  from  which  he  selected 
at  will. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  born  in  Litchfield,  Con- 
necticut, June  24,  1813.  His  father  had  preached 
in  this  town  since  1810.  He  was  the  ninth  child,  and 
the  eighth  then  living,  of  Lyman  Beecher  and  his  first 
wife,  Roxana  Foote.  The  new-born  infant  was 
named  after  his  uncles  Henry  and  Ward,  and  the 
names  were  given  by  the  grandmother,  Roxana 
Foote,  who  was  with  her  daughter  when  he  was 
born.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  eleven  years  the 
senior  of  that  other  leading  genius  of  New  England 
theological  reform,  Horace  Bushnell,  who  first  saw 
the  light  in  the  same  town. 

His  father  and  mother,  as  Joseph  Parker  has  said, 
"were  enough  to  account  for  any  genius,  for  their 
spiritual  life  was  purely  aristocratic,  and  enough  to 
account  for  any  goodness,  for  they  held  much  daily 
commerce  with  Heaven."  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  in  a 
marked  and  unusual  measure,  was  the  child,  not  only 
of  his  parents,  but  also  of  his  remote  ancestors.  There 
appears  in  his  many-sided  character  and  vast  stores 
of  physical  and  moral  endurance  scarcely  a  trait  or 
force  which  may  not  be  distinctly  traced  to  some  one 
of  his  known  progenitors.  Elisha  Foote,  the  father  of 
Roxana  Foote,  was  a  descendant  from  the  Englishman 
who  aided  King  Charles  First  to  hide  from  his  pur- 
suers in  the  Royal  Oak  which  grew  in  afield  of  clover. 
For  this  service  he  was  knighted,  and  the  coat-of-arms 
for  the  Foote  family  shows  an  oak-tree  standing  in  a 
clover  field. 


4  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Another  of  the  ancestors  of  Roxana  Foote  was 
Andrew  Ward,  one  of  the  English  gentlemen  who 
sailed  with  John  Winthrop,  Thomas  Dudley,  Sir 
Richard  Saltonstall  and  the  Rev.  George  Phillips  in 
the  good  ship  Arbella,  which  arrived  in  Boston  on 
June  22,  1630.  Among  his  descendants  were  Colonel 
Andrew  Ward  who  helped  in  the  capture  of  Louisburg 
and  who  was  famed  for  his  total  abstinence  principles, 
and  General  Andrew  Ward,  distinguished  in  the 
Revolutionary  struggle,  and  who  for  many  years  was 
regularly  and  without  opposition  chosen  to  the  State 
Legislature  of  Connecticut. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  had  the  looks  of  his  mother, 
as  everyone  will  discern  who  studies  the  fine  portrait 
of  Roxana  Foote  which  appears  in  the  biography  of 
Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  written  by  her  son.  Not  only  is 
the  general  outline  of  the  mother's  face  reproduced,  but 
"  the  fine  nose,  the  full  eye,  the  mobile,  sensitive  mouth 
appear  in  both."  Wc  are  told  that  after  his  moth- 
er's death,  which  occurred  in  1816,  little  Henry  was 
discovered  under  his  sister  Catherine's  window  dig- 
ging with  great  zeal,  and  when  asked  what  he  was  do- 
ing he  replied,  "  Why,  I  am  going  to  Heaven  to  find 
mamma." 

No  mother  ever  had  sweeter  things  written  of  her 
by  her  children  than  the  mother  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  Catherine  says  of  Roxana  Foote  that  she 
had  "  a  high  ideal  of  excellence  in  whatever  she  at- 
tempted, and  a  habit  of  regarding  all  knowledge  with 
reference  to  its  practical  usefulness,  and  remarkable 
perseverence  "  And  Harriet  writes  of  her  mother 
that  she  was  "  a  woman  to  make  a  deep  impression 
on   the  minds  of  her  children.     There  was  a    moral 


THE    FLOWER   OF    NEW    ENGLAND   WOMANHOOD.  5 

force  about  her,  a  dignity  of  demeanor,  and  an  air  of 
elegance  and  superior  breeding  which  produced  a 
constant  atmosphere  of  unconscious  awe  in  the  minds 
of  little  children."  And,  again,  she  writes  that  her 
"  mother  was  one  of  those  strong,  restful,  and  yet 
widely  sympathetic  natures,  in  whom  all  around 
seemed  to  find  comfort  and  repose.  The  communion 
between  her  and  my  father  was  a  peculiar  one;  it  was 
an  intimacy  throughout  the  whole  range  of  their  be- 
ing. There  was  no  person  in  whose  decision  he  had 
greater  confidence  and  faith;  intellectually  and  mor- 
ally he  regarded  her  as  the  better  and  stronger  por- 
tion of  himself,  and  I  remember  hearing  him  say 
that  after  her  death  his  first  sensation  was  a  sort  of 
terror  like  that  of  a  child  suddenly  shut  out  in  the 
dark." 

She  died  when  Henry  was  little  more  than  three 
years  old,  so  that  his  recollections  of  this  remarka- 
ble woman  were  shadowy.  And  yet  Mrs.  Stowe 
writes:  "  Although  my  mother's  bodily  presence  dis- 
appeared from  our  circle,  I  think  that  the  memory 
and  example  of  her  had  more  influence  in  molding 
her  family  than  the  living  presence  of  many  mothers." 
When  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  in  September,  1831, 
found  the  correspondence  between  his  father  and 
mother,  how  eagerly  he  sought  out  her  letters  and 
read  them.  "  O  my  mother,  I  could  not  help  kissing 
the  letters.  I  looked  at  the  paper  and  thought  that 
her  hand  had  rested  on  it  while  writing  it.  The  hand 
of  my  mother  had  formed  every  letter  which  I  saw, 
she  had  looked  upon  that  paper,  she  had  folded  it, 
she  had  sent  it,  and  I  found  out  more  of  her  mind 
than  I  ever  knew  before,  more  of  her  feelings,  her 


6  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

piety."  '  And  afterwards  when  he  came  to  own  a 
faded  picture  of  a  flower  which  his  mother's  hand  had 
drawn  and  colored,  it  seemed  to  him  the  most  pre- 
cious art-product  in  the  world. 

Roxana  Foote  appears  to  have  been,  in  her  way, 
quite  as  remarkable  as  Lyman  Beecher.  Hers  was  a 
more  refined,  meditative,  and  imaginative  nature. 
Like  the  New  England  housewives  of  her  time  she 
could  do  all  the  labors  of  the  home,  weaving,  spin- 
ning and  making  the  clothes,  as  well  as  skillfully  pre- 
paring the  food.  She  is  said  to  have  been  an  adept  in 
needlework.  She  was  well  acquainted  with  literature, 
history,  and  French.  She  could  use  the  pencil  and 
the  brush,  and  possessed  some  knowledge  of  music. 
Unlike  Lyman  Beecher,  she  was  tall  and  beautiful. 
Her  natural  timidity  was  so  great  she  was  never  able 
to  lead  the  woman's  weekly  prayer-meeting.  She 
came  from  a  distinguished  family,  and,  though  of 
Puritan  blood,  she  was  early  confirmed  in  the  Prot- 
estant Episcopal  Church,  the  communion  of  which 
her  parents  were  members.  It  required  some  inde- 
pendence of  character  for  her  family,  one  part  of  it, 
to  remain  loyal  to  King  George  during  the  Revolu- 
tionary struggle. 

She  was  a  woman  of  patience  and  unselfishness, 
and  her  extraordinary  resignation  excited  the  amaze- 
ment of  her  husband.  Mrs.  Stowe  reports  the  tradi- 
tion that  she  never  spoke  an  angry  word  in  her  life. 
Henry  Ward  said  of  her,  "  There  are  few  born  to  this 
world  that  are  her  equals."  "  From  her  I  received  my 
love  of  the  beautiful,  my  poetic  temperament."     And 


1  "Biography,"  p.  128. 


THE    FLOWER   OF   NEW   ENGLAND    WOMANHOOD.  7 

he  once  declared  that  this  imaginative  temperament 
was  responsible  for  a  good  deal  of  the  heresy  with 
which  he  was  sometimes  charged.  From  his  mother 
Beecher  believed  that  he  also  received  simplicity  and 
childlike  faith  in  God.  "My  mother  was  an  inspired 
woman  who  saw  God  in  Nature  as  well  as  in  the 
Book." 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  his  ideal  of  woman  was  so 
lofty  ?  His  sister  Catherine  was  a  person  of  rare  in- 
tellectual power  and  moral  genius,  who,  out  of  her 
sorrow  and  study,  evolved  that  conception  of  God 
which  became  the  ruling  conception  in  her  brother's 
great  ministry.  His  sister  Harriet  was  a  woman  whom 
it  is  superfluous  to  praise,  the  author  of  one  of  the  few 
epoch-making  volumes  in  all  literary  history.  His 
mother  was  to  his  affectionate  remembrance  an  angel 
of  light.  He  says,  "I  have  only  such  a  remembrance 
of  her  as  you  have  of  the  clouds  of  ten  years  ago, 
faint,  evanescent,  and  yet  caught  by  imagination  and 
fed  by  that  which  I  have  heard  of  her,  and  by  what 
my  father's  thought  and  feeling  of  her  were,  it  has 
come  to  be  so  much  to  me  that  no  devout  Catholic 
ever  saw  so  much  in  the  Virgin  Mary  as  I  have  seen 
in  my  mother,  who  has  been  a  presence  to  me  ever 
since  I  can  remember."  One  recalls  the  tribute  which 
Theodore  Parker  paid  to  motherhood  in  his  dis- 
course on  Daniel  Webster:  "  When  virtue  leaps 
high  in  the  public  fountain,  you  seek  for  the  lofty 
spring  of  nobleness  and  find  it  far  off  in  the  dear 
breast  of  some  mother  who  melted  the  snows  of 
winter  and  condensed  the  summer's  dew  into  fair, 
sweet  humanity,  which  now  gladdens  the  face  of  man 
in  all  the  city  streets." 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    KING    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    PULPIT. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  the  son  of  his  father,  as 
well  as  of  his  mother,  and  his  public  speech,  down  to 
the  last  sermon  of  his  life,  abounded  with  eulogies  of 
Lyman  Beecher,  who  still  retains,  in  the  hearts  of 
some  older  men  now  living,  a  place  of  reverent  admira- 
tion and  enthusiastic  love  never  awarded  to  the  son. 
This  father  of  seven  ministers,  most  of  whom  have 
been  distinguished,  was  an  inspiring  teacher,  friend, 
and  guide,  a  man  whose  influence  in  New  England 
surpassed  Daniel  Webster's  in  his  prime.  The  more 
famous  son  differed  from  his  father  in  so  many  respects 
that  we  are  apt  to  overlook  some  striking  resem- 
blances. Both  were  men  of  the  warmest  affections. 
Dr.  Beecher  loved  "  old  President  Dwight  of  Yale 
College  as  his  own  soul."  He  was  a  man  of  magnetic 
eloquence,  restless  energy,  and  great  evangelical  fer- 
vor. He  was  singularly  free  from  jealousy  and 
selfishness.  Few  men  were  ever  inspired  with  a  more 
passionate  love  for  Christ.  Believing  that  the  great- 
est thing  in  the  world  was  to  "save  souls,"  he  was 
peculiarly  Pauline  in  the  fiber  of  his  nature,  and 
appears  to  us  at  times  like  St.  Augustine,  with  eyes 
turned  upward,  a  pen  in  his  left  hand  and  a  burning 
heart  in  his  right. 

Lyman  Beecher  treated  his  children  to  a  surfeit  of 


THE    KING    OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    PULPIT.  9 

theology,  and  thought  of  himself  as  a  man  born  to 
fight  error  on  the  one  side,  and  to  readjust  the  expla- 
nation and  defense  of  Calvinistic  doctrine  on  the 
other.  He  was  mora  of  a  theologian,  technically 
speaking,  than  his  son — at  least  he  thought  more  and 
spoke  more  in  the  line  of  the  theologies.  He  was 
himself  a  theological  reformer,  and  the  changes  which 
he  championed,  and  which  his  son  pushed  on  into 
extremer  manifestations,  illustrate  the  saying  of  Dr. 
Holmes:  "  It  is  impossible  for  human  nature  to  remain 
permanently  shut  up  in  the  highest  lock  of  Calvin- 
ism." 

In  both  Lyman  Beecher  and  his  son  appeared  strik- 
ing eccentricities  of  character.  Both  had  a  humorous 
way  of  looking  at  life  and  great  frolicsomeness  of  dis- 
position. The  father  was  a  dyspeptic.  "  From  my 
earliest  childhood,"  said  Mr.  Beecher  in  his  Yale  lec- 
tures, "  I  noticed  the  great  watchfulness  and  skill  with 
which  he  took  care  of  himself."  And  this  led  Henry 
Ward  to  habitual  thoughtfulness  about  his  own  health. 
It  is  scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  father's 
trouble  was  dyspepsia,  when  we  remember  the  state 
of  the  culinary  art  in  New  England  in  the  early  part 
of  this  century.  Lyman  Beecher  writes:  "We  dined 
on  salt  pork,  vegetables,  and  pies;  corned  beef,  also, 
and  always  on  Sunday  a  boiled  Indian  pudding.  We 
made  a  stock  of  pies  on  Thanksgiving,  froze  them  for 
winter  use,  and  they  lasted  until  March."  There  is  a 
legend  that  on  taking  down  the  pantry  of  an  old 
house  in  Connecticut,  pies  were  found  in  perfect 
preservation,  although  the  earthen  dishes  which  had 
contained  them  had  entirely  decayed!  It  is  possible 
that  Henry  Ward's   occasional  melancholy  of  spirits 


JO  HENRY    WARD     1EECJER. 

may  have  been  partly  an  inheritance  from  ancestors 
who  had  been  improperly  fed  and  whose  pleasures 
were  not  the  most  wholesome  and  refined.  Lyman 
Beecber  relates  what  used  to  happen  at  the  meetings 
of  the  Association  of  Ministers  who  dined  athisUncle 
Benton's:  "  As  soon  as  Aunt  Benton  saw  them  coming 
she  threw  the  irons  in  the  fire  and  ran  down  cellar  to 
draw  a  pail  of  beer.  Then  the  hot  irons  were  thrust 
in,  hissing  and  foaming.  It  was  sweetened  and  the 
flip  was  ready.  Then  came  pipes,  and  in  less  than 
fifteen  minutes  you  could  not  see  across  the  room." 

Although  Lyman  Beecher  lived  before  anything 
American,  except  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
was  likely  to  become  cosmopolitan,  he  was  in  some 
respects  second  in  influence  only  to  his  more  famous 
son.  As  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  in  its  commonly 
accepted  sense,  as  a  factor  in  the  building  of  Christian 
institutions  and  as  a  revivalist,  Lyman  Beecher  was 
superior  to  the  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church.  But  his 
training  was  more  narrow,  his  intellectual  furnishings 
far  more  limited.  One  of  the  famous  scholars  in  the 
Faculty  of  Yale  College  used  to  speak  of  "  the  enor- 
mous illiteracy  of  Lyman  Beecher,"  but  this  was  prob- 
ably only  a  rough  way  of  asserting  that  the  standard 
of  literary  culture  has  been  immensely  raised  since 
Lyman  Beecher  pursued  his  student  life  in  New 
Haven. 

A  few  years  after  Andrew  Ward  had  arrived  in 
Boston,  the  widow  Hannah  Beecher  with  her  son 
John,  the  first  of  the  Beechers  in  New  England, 
came  to  New  Haven  with  the  godly  company  who 
were  the  pioneers  of  John  Davenport's  important  set- 
tlement.      John    Beecher    was    descended    from    the 


THE    KING    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    PULPIT.  II 

sturdy  Kentish  yeomanry  who  made  so  deep  an 
impression  on  English  history  "in  the  spacious  times 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,"  and  whom  Charles  Kingsley 
has  celebrated  in  the  brilliant  and  thrilling  pages  of 
"Westward  Ho." 

The  Beechers  were  blacksmiths,  and  it  is  said 
that  the  anvil  of  Nathaniel  and  David  Beecher 
stood  upon  the  stump  of  the  famous  oak  under 
whose  boughs  Davenport  preached  his  first  ser- 
mon to  the  New  Haven  colonists.  One  of  Henry's 
great-grandfathers  married  a  Roberts  of  Welsh  blood, 
and  he  often  gave  the  credit  of  his  fervid  imagination 
to  his  Welsh  ancestry.  It  is  amusing  to  read  that 
his  great-great-grandfather,  the  sturdy  New  Haven 
blacksmith,  was  strong  enough  to  lift  a  barrel  of  cider 
and  drink  out  of  the  bunghole;  that  his  great-grand- 
father Joseph,  was  able  to  lift  a  barrel  of  cider  into 
a  cart,  and  that  his  grandfather,  David  Beecher, 
could  lift  a  barrel  of  cider  and  carry  it  into  the  cellar. 
These  were  athletic  feats  which  some  Hosea  Biglow 
might  have  celebrated  in  a  rude  New  England  Iliad, 
and  have  lifted  into  a  fragment  of  the  fame  which 
belongs  to  the  achievements  of  the  muscular  Ajax. 

Physical  strength  was  thus  an  inheritance  with  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  although  his  father  was  exceedingly 
puny  at  first,  and  although  Lyman  Beecher's  mother 
died  with  the  consumption  only  two  days  after 
Lyman  was  born.  As  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  grand- 
fathers, David  and  Nathaniel,  smote  upon  their 
anvils,  they  little  dreamed  that  they  were  nurtur- 
ing the  strength  in  which  an  illustrious  descendant 
was  to  strike  at  the  most  colossal  and  perilous 
iniquity  that  ever  endangered  America.     Roger  Sher- 


12  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

man,  the  Connecticut  statesman  and  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  used  to  call  frequently 
on  David  Beecher,  Lyman's  father,  because  he  was 
fond  of  politics  and  a  studious  reader  of  the  only 
newspaper  published  in  New  England.  Sherman 
used  to  say  that  he  "always  calculated  on  seeing  Mr. 
Beecher  as  soon  as  he  got  home  from  Congress  to 
talk  over  the  particulars."  David  was  more  careless 
in  his  dress  than  his  son  or  grandson.  Henry  Ward's 
Aunt  Esther  said  that  she  had  known  him  at  least  a 
dozen  times  to  come  in  from  the  barn  and  sit  down 
on  a  coat-pocket  full  of  eggs,  and  jump  up  and  say, 
"O  wife!" 

Like  Henry  Ward  he  was  fond  of  pets,  and  like 
him  he  suffered  acutely  from  hypochondria,  though 
not  from  the  same  causes.  The  grandfather  was  a 
dyspeptic,  and  would  pass  suddenly  from  hilarity 
to  intense  mental  distress.  David  Beecher  was  five 
times  married.  Lyman  Beecher  was  thrice  married — 
in  1799,  1817,  and  1836 — and  was  the  father  of  thirteen 
children  of  whom  eleven  survived  him. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher's 
inheritance  was  rich  and  manifold.  From  father  and 
mother  both  came  strong,  distinctive  qualities.  He 
belonged  to  a  race  which  appears  to  have  the  instinct 
for  reform.  His  ancestors  who  left  England  were 
Come-outers,  so  that  he  seems  to  have  been  a  reformer 
from  heredity,  unlike  Wendell  Phillips,  whose  imme- 
diate ancestors  were  conservative  and  aristocratic, 
and  unlike  Charles  Sumner,  "  who  was  built  appar- 
ently to  play  the  part  of  a  sovereign  and  an  aristo- 
crat," but  who  filled  "  the  office  of  nurse  to  the  slave 
child."     Lyman  Beecher  was  born  to  preach  ;  that  is, 


THE    KING    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    PULPIT.  13 

he  had  that  combination  of  energy,  fervent  emotive- 
ness,  and  logical  power  which  makes  the  effective 
preacher  ;  and  he  was  also  a  reformer,  that  is,  as  he 
said,  "  when  I  saw  a  rattlesnake  in  my  path  I  killed 
it."  Neither  father  nor  son  went  out  of  his  way,  like 
some  of  the  radical  and  far-seeing  reformers  of  our 
time,  to  hunt  rattlesnakes.  But  neither  of  these  men 
ever  turned  aside  from  the  venomous  beasts  which 
they  encountered. 

In  Lyman  Beecher  there  was  something  of 
the  catholic  spirit  which  his  son  developed  into 
such  cosmical  proportions.  He  preached  for  eleven 
years  in  East  Hampton,  on  Long  Island.  When 
a  Methodist  preacher  came  into  that  village  by 
the  Sound,  which  was  Lyman  Beecher's  first  parish, 
and  expected,  by  his  fervent  evangelism,  to  make  an 
inroad  upon  the  staid  Presbyterian  congregation  of 
the  place,  the  officers  of  the  Church  were  sorely 
alarmed  by  his  advent.  But  Lyman  Beecher  decided 
to  act  with  vigorous  friendliness  in  this  matter,  and 
went  directly  to  the  house  where  the  itinerant 
preacher  lodged,  gave  him  the  heartiest  welcome,  an 
unusual  act  of  courtesy  in  those  days  of  intense 
denominationalism,  and  insisted  on  his  preaching  in 
the  village  church.  This  he  did  without  making  any 
very  deep  impression.     The  first  sermon  was  the  last. 

Lyman  Beecher  said  of  himself:  "I  was  made  for 
action,  the  Lord  drove  me  on,  but  I  was  ready.  I 
have  always  been  going  at  full  speed."  There  were 
times  when  this  was  preeminently  true  of  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  but,  fortunately  for  the  world,  he  had 
in  his  nature  an  element  of  reposefulness,  not  to  say 
of  apparent  physical  indolence,  by  which  his  life  was 


14  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

prolonged  in  spite  of  the  tremendous  excitements 
which  he  underwent  and  the  even  more  wearing 
trials  which  came  to  him  in  the  height  of  his  fame. 
Lyman  Beecher  thought  that  the  law  and  the  doc- 
trine, without  any  accompanying  explanations,  were 
a  rude  and  cruel  way  of  getting  souls  into  the  King- 
dom. He  had  firm  confidence  in  his  own  power  to 
elucidate  the  mysteries  of  Scripture  and  experience, 
and  to  adapt  Biblical  truth  to  the  varying  wants  of 
individual  souls.  He  even  believed  that  if  Lord 
Byron  could  have  had  the  advantage  of  his  personal 
explanations  of  truth,  that  acrid  and  erratic  son  of 
genius  might  have  been  guided  into  brighter  and 
better  paths.  One  of  Lyman  Beecher's  peculiarities 
was  this,  that  he  was  almost  intoxicated  by  the  crash 
and  roar  of  thunder.  It  is  uncertain  whether  thunder 
produced  any  powerful  effect  on  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
but  he  was  fond  of  making  it  himself,  and  Dr. 
Richard  S.  Storrs  says  of  him  that  he  wasted  enough 
breath  in  unnecessary  noise  during  his  public  speak- 
ing to  make  two  or  three  good  sized  thunder-storms! 
In  the  sturdy  frame  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  when 
under  the  greatest  excitement,  there  was  a  titanic 
strength  of  emotion,  an  emotion  more  volcanic  than 
his  father's,  which  made  him  indeed  the  Jupiter  of 
the  pulpit  and  the  worthy  successor  of  those  ancient 
orators  of  Athens, 

"Whose  resistless  eloquence 
Wielded  at  will  that  fierce  democraty, 
Shook  the  arsenal,  and  fulmined  over  Greece, 
To  Macedon  and  Artaxerxes's  throne." 

New  England   children,   at   the   beginning  of  this 


THE    KI>»   OF    THE    NEW    ENGLAND    PULPIT.  15 

century  and  earlier,  were  permitted  to  play  on  Sun- 
day evening  as  soon  as  they  could  see  three  stars. 
Lyman  Beecher  relates  that  playing  one  Sunday  eve- 
ning, he  was  too  impatient  to  wait  for  the  three  lights 
in  the  heaven,  and  when  one  of  his  boy  friends  saw 
him  and  said  "  That's  wicked,  there  aint  three  stars," 
he  replied,  "  Don't  care."  "God  says  you  mustn't." 
"Don't  care."  "He'll  punish  you."  "Well  if  He 
does  I'll  tell  Aunt  Benton."  "Well  He's  bigger  than 
Aunt  Benton  and  He'll  put  you  in  the  fire  and  burn 
you  up  for  ever  and  for  ever."  And  Lyman  Beecher 
relates  that  this  took  hold  of  him.  He  understood 
what  fire  was  and  what  for  ever  was.  "What  emotion 
I  had,  thinking,  no  end,  no  end!  It's  been  a  sort  of 
mainspring  ever  since."  This  incident  will  show 
what  an  enormous  change  has  come  over  the  pre- 
vailing orthodox  preaching  of  our  time.  Endlessness 
of  suffering  was,  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  subor- 
dinate to  the  infinity  of  God's  love  as  an  incentive 
to  accept  the  Gospel  and  as  a  mainspring  of  Christian 
activity. 

The  great  modern  apostle  of  love,  who  was  also  the 
greatest  American  preacher  of  righteousness,  came 
into  the  world  on  the  day  which  honors  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  who  made  Herod  and  the  Pharisees  tremble. 
The  ten  years  of  American  history  extending  from 
1805  to  1815  witnessed  the  births  of  a  group  of  men 
and  women  foreordained  to  become  illustrious  in 
the  great  anti-slavery  struggle,  or  in  that  Civil  War 
"which  bound  the  Union  and  unbound  the  slave." 
Garrison  was  born  in  1805,  John  G.  Whittier  and 
Robert  E.  Lee  in  1807,  Salmon  P.  Chase  and  Jefferson 
Davis  in   1808,  Abraham   Lincoln  in   1809,  Theodore 


1 6  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Parker  in  1810,  Charles  Sumner,  Wendell  Phillips, 
Horace  Greeley  and  Harriet  Beecher  in  181 1,  Alex- 
ander Stephens  in  1812,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  1813, 
and  Edwin  M.  Stanton  in  1814.  Some  curious  and 
prophetic  angel  might  have  made,  during  the  consul- 
ates of  Jefferson  and  Madison,  a  most  interesting 
collection  of  children,  destined  to  immortal  celebrity 
in  American  annals,  but  probably  no  human  eyes 
could  have  foreseen  the  momentous  struggle,  both 
moral  and  military,  in  which  these  children  were 
destined  to  act  such  various  and  conspicuous  parts. 
Few  of  these  were  foreordained  to  lives  so  interesting 
and  commandingly  influential,  over  both  political  and 
religious  developments,  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

We  may  sum  up  the  account  and  record  of  ancestral 
influences  by  noting  the  fact  that  he  seemed  to  be 
a  compound  of  opposite  characteristics.  The  most 
earnest  was  the  most  playful  of  men;  the  most 
cheerful  was  at  times  the  most  despondent;  the  most 
devoted  and  unselfish  was  occasionally  stiffly  inde- 
pendent. Though  possessing  many  of  the  elements 
of  conservatism,  like  Milton  and  Lowell,  though 
loving  the  retirement  of  Nature,  the  companionship 
of  books  and  long  periods  of  quiet  observation  and 
meditation,  he  had  all  the  strongest  instincts  of  the 
reformer  and  was  the  flaming  Jupiter  of  American 
anti-slavery  orators.  Along  many  lines  of  vitality 
he  inherited  all  the  chief  characteristics  of  the 
English-speaking  race  in  every  one  of  its  branches. 
He  had  not  only  the  blood  of  Wales  with  its  fervid 
intensity,  he  had  also  an  inheritance  of  Scottish  blood, 
and  there  was  in  him  the  marvelous  persistency  and 
a  determination  to  carry  every  undertaking  through 


THE    KING    OF   THE    NEW    ENGLAND    PULPIT.  17 

to  success  which  is  supposed  to  be  distinctly  an 
English  trait.  The  Puritan  and  the  Cavalier  were 
both  in  his  veins  and  in  his  mind.  With  playfulness 
and  domesticity  of  spirit  was  conjoined  a  grave  and 
all-absorbing  earnestness.  The  Shakespeare  of  the 
pulpit  was  an  enthusiastic  student  of  the  prose  and 
poetry  of  Milton,  from  the  reading  of  whom  he 
fashioned,  to  a  certain  degree,  his  nobler  style  in  the 
greater  passages  of  his  eloquence.  He  belongs,  and 
will  ultimately  be  seen  to  belong,  to  the  English  race 
in  all  the  continents. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    NURSE    OF    HIS    CHILDHOOD. 

During  the  sixteen  years  in  which  Dr.  Beecher 
preached  at  Litchfield  he  became  one  of  the  foremost 
men  of  New  England.  And  while  this  indefatigable 
teacher  of  righteousness  was  delivering  great  ser- 
mons against  Intemperance,  or  on  the  Building  up 
of  the  Waste  Places,  thereby  setting  in  motion 
reforms  whose  current  is  sweeping  us  forward  to-day, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  finding  Litchfield  the 
rough  and  wholesome  nurse  of  his  childhood. 

There  is  something  pathetic  and  almost  melancholy 
in  the  changes  which  have  come  over  many  of  the 
smaller  towns  of  New  England.  Professor  Park  has 
written,  in  his  recollections  of  Dr.  Emmons,  of  this 
pensive  interest  which  has  been  "  thrown  over  the 
places  which  have  been  distinguished  as  the  residence 
of  our  ablest  divines.  Most  of  them  are  rural  villages, 
where  the  stillness  of  the  Sabbath  reigns  from  day  to 
day,  and  where  but  few  relics  remain  of  the  great- 
ness which  has  left  them.  Formerly  they  were  the 
seats  of  the  oracle.  The  voice  which  went  out  from 
these  retired  villages  was  heard  and  obeyed  in  our 
own  land  and  in  Britain.  But  now  the  scepter  has 
departed  from  these  churches,  and  the  lawgiver  from 
among  them,  and  grass  has  grown  up  in  the  paths 
once  trod  by  the  masters  in  our  Israel." 


THE    NURSE    OF    HIS    CHILDHOOD.  19 

Litchfield,  however,  will  always  be  interesting  as  the 
town  where  Lyman  Beecher  preached  the  Gospel  with 
such  life-giving  power,  and  as  the  birthplace  of  his  two 
most  famous  children.  Like  Bethlehem,  it  is  in  the  hill 
country,  a  mountain  town,  a  thousand  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  ocean.  Beautiful  and  delightful  in  the 
summer,  it  is  made  dreadful  through  the  long  winter 
with  ice  and  snow  and  cold.  "  This  portion  of  verte- 
brate New  England  is  so  roundly  covered  with  strong 
soil,  so  veined  with  well-fed  water-courses,  and 
clothed  upon  with  rich  verdure,  that  its  wild  beauty 
is  redeemed  from  all  harshness.  The  very  air  breathes 
vigor  and  purity."1 

To  know  the  springs  of  American  civilization  we 
must  know  the  New  England  town,  and  Litchfield  is 
one  of  the  best  examples  of  that  chiefest  of  American 
institutions.  It  is  said  of  the  people  of  this  region 
that  they  were  unusually  enterprising.  "  They  made 
good  turnpike  roads;  opened  schools  and  academies; 
started  manufactures,  and  made  their  law-school  a 
prominent  seat  of  constitutional  training  whence  came 
some  of  the  best  lawyers  of  the  country."  During 
the  Revolutionary  war  the  town  had  been  distin- 
guished for  its  patriotism,  and,  like  Washington  at 
Mount  Vernon,  it  sent  contributions  to  beleaguered 
Boston  in  the  solemn  times  of  the  Port  Bill.  It  had 
the  honor  of  molding  into  forty  thousand  bullets 
the  statue  of  George  the  Third,  which  had  been  car- 
ried from  Bowling  Green  in  New  York  to  this  moun- 
tain village. 

When  Henry  Ward  Beecher  revisited  Litch- 
field, in  his  forty-fourth  year,  he  recalled  most 
vividly  the  early  days  and   scenes.     Some   of   the  old 


1  "Life  and  Letters  of  Horace  Bushnell,"  pp.  3-4. 


20  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

houses  were  still  standing,  the  old  store,  the  bank, 
and  the  jail;  and  there  were  the  old  familiar  trees; 
and  the  names  of  the  residents  along  the  chief  streets 
were  not  forgotten.  And  we  think  of  some  of  the 
scenes  which  he  has  portrayed  in  "  Norwood,"  when 
he  speaks  of  the  greatest  man  in  town,  who 
owned  the  stables,  and  of  the  wittiest,  who  was 
the  stage-driver.  "  In  that  temple  which  boys' 
imagination  makes,  a  stage-proprietor  and  stage- 
driver  stand  forth  as  grand  as  Minerva  in  the  Par- 
thenon of  true  piety  and  devotion  to  the  highest 
things!  " 

Litchfield  was  a  good  town  for  such  a  boy  to 
be  born  in,  and  Henry  Ward  was  always  thankful 
that  the  early  measuring  lines  of  life  had  fallen  to 
him  in  such  delightful  places,  where  the  society  was 
of  no  mean  order,  where  the  law-school  and  the 
boarding-school  gave  some  little  intellectual  dignity 
to  the  community,  and  where  his  early  environment 
was  such  that  he  did  not  become  acquainted  in  a 
practical  way  with  wickedness.  It  is  worth  remember- 
ing that  he  records  his  youthful  unsulliedness,  and 
that  he  grew  up  pure  as  a  woman.  The  moral  atmos- 
phere of  Litchfield  must  have  been  far  more  whole- 
some and  invigorating  than  that  of  many  other  New 
England  towns.  We  know  that  Professor  Phelps 
recorded  his  protest  against  the  vulgarity  of  the 
average  country-district  school.  "  The  innocence  of 
rural  life  was  not  illustrated  in  my  early  surround- 
ings. I  never  found  afterwards  in  colleges  or  in  cities 
such  corrupting  or  vulgarizing  influences." 

They  are  pleasant  pictures  which  have  been  given  us 
of  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  early  life.     We  find  him  a 


THE    NURSE    OF    HIS   CHILDHOOD.  21 

healthy-minded,  interesting,  thoroughly  boyish,  and 
affectionate  boy,  humiliated,  like  many  other  boys, 
when  compelled  to  wear  an  overcoat  on  coldest  days. 
We  see  him,  when  only  nine  years  old,  harnessing  the 
horse  to  the  sled  and  taking  great  pride,  on  a  wintry 
day,  in  bringing  home  a  barrel  of  water  from  an  icy 
brook  three  miles  distant.  The  disposition  to  do  hard 
things  and  take  great  comfort  in  them  was  a  family 
trait. 

Henry  Ward's  mother  died  when  he  was  three.  Mrs. 
Stowe  writes  that  Henry  was  too  small  to  go  to  the 
funeral,  and  she  remembers  his  golden  curls  and  little 
black  frock  as  he  frolicked  in  the  sun.  In  the  autumn 
of  1817,  Lyman  Beecher  brought  to  the  Litchfield 
parsonage,  as  his  second  wife,  Miss  Harriet  Porter,  of 
Portland,  Maine.  The  coming  of  the  second  mother 
was  of  course  a  memorable  event  in  the  household, 
and  fortunately  not  one  which  brought  with  it  a 
shadow.  The  new  mother's  heart  was  at  once  drawn 
out  to  the  children,  who  seemed  to  her  amiable  and 
bright  and  also  possessed  of  fine  capacities  and  good 
taste  for  learning.  This  was  certainly  true  of  William, 
Edward,  Catherine,  and  George,  and  the  younger 
children  appeared  to  her  lovely  and  affectionate. 
But  the  second  mother,  while  serene,  beautiful  and 
accomplished,  was  one  who  inspired  awe  in  view  of 
her  goodness,  rather  than  cheerful  and  enthusiastic 
love.  Young  Henry  was  disposed  to  shrink  from  her 
as  being  a  saint  of  whose  affection  little  transgressors 
were  unworthy.  He  has  left  numerous  praises  of  her 
fidelity,  and  has  spoken  strongly  of  the  deep  impression 
she  made  upon  him;  but  he  could  not  open  his  young 
heart    to    her    in    fullest    confidence.     Referring    to 


22  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

his  devotions  with  her,  he  said:  "I  always  felt 
when  I  went  to  prayer  as  though  I  was  going  into  a 
crypt  where  the  sun  was  not  allowed  to  come,  and  I 
shrank  from  it."  She  did  not  represent  that  kind  of 
Christian  experience  which  was  to  open  his  heart  to 
the  glory  and  beauty  of  religion. 

But  other  influences,  more  helpful,  were  brought  to 
bear  upon  his  awakening  thought.  Old  Aunt  Esther, 
with  her  numberless  stories  and  her  wonderful  read- 
ings from  the  Bible,  was  a  radiant  and  cheerful  pres- 
ence in  the  young  boy's  life  and  also  in  his  after 
recollections  of  childhood.  When  an  old  man  Mr. 
Beecher  spoke  most  tenderly  of  her  great  influence 
over  him,  and,  with  tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  he 
read  to  his  family  the  matchless,  immortal  story  of 
Joseph,  as  she  was  accustomed  to  read  it  in  the  old, 
old  days  when  he  lived  his  young  life  of  mirth  and 
melancholy  in  the  gloomy  parsonage  of  Litchfield. 
This  experience  was  not  solitary  and  peculiar.  Hugh 
Miller  recalls  how  his  mind  was  awakened  by  that 
most  delightful  of  all  narratives,  the  history  of  Jo- 
seph, which  showed  him  that  "  the  art  of  reading  was 
the  art  of  finding  stories  in  books." 

Mr.  Beecher  has  often  spoken  of  the  colored 
man  who  was  a  laborer  on  his  father's  farm,  the 
Charles  Smith  in  whose  room  he  slept  and  whose 
joyful  piety  made  upon  his  heart  such  a  last- 
ing impression.  From  him  he  learned  in  some 
measure  what  may  be  the  overflowing  gladness 
and  thanksgiving  of  prayer.  And  more  even  than 
from  his  father  he  learned  from  this  man,  as  he  saw 
him  reading  from  his  Bible,  while  he  talked  about  it 
to  himself  and  to  his  God,  what  it  is  to  rejoice  con- 


THE    NURSE   OF    HIS   CHILDHOOD.  23 

tinually  and  heartily  in  the  Lord.  In  a  remarkably 
luminous  analysis  of  the  distinctive  types  of  religious 
character  which  shaped  Beecher's  boyhood,  Rev.  Frank 
S.  Child  of  Fairfield,  Connecticut,  has  shown  that 
Mr.  Beecher's  mother  stands  for  the  spiritual  in  relig- 
ious life,  that  the  stepmother  stands  for  the  disciplinary, 
that  the  colored  servant  stands  for  the  practical,  and 
that  Lyman  Beecher  stands  for  the  intellectual.  Added 
to  all  this  was  the  great  impersonal  service  of  Nature. 
While  his  second  mother,  a  woman  of  great  intel- 
ligence and  unyielding  conscientiousness,  was  ac- 
customed to  show  the  children  their  faults  and  to 
pray  for  them  and  to  insist  upon  cheerful  and  im- 
mediate obedience,  the  father  introduced  into  the 
family  life  a  large  degree  of  playfulness.  "  The  great 
barn  of  a  structure,  the  rooms  scattered  about  here 
and  there,"  for  such  was  the  Litchfield  parsonage, 
was  a  home  where  Dr.  Beecher  was  wont  to  frolic  and 
play  all  sorts  of  pranks  with  his  children.  It  is  true 
that  the  frolicsome  divine  sometimes  held  the  rod  in 
his  hand,  and  made  his  children  feel  that  he  suffered 
more  than  they  did  when  he  was  compelled  to  use  it, 
but  Henry,  and  his  brother  Charles,  who  was  his  daily 
companion  in  his  early  years,  were  not  often 
"switched."  Unlimited  amounts  of  fun  came  into 
their  lives;  the  only  work  required  was  in  helping  to 
take  care  of  the  garden  and  the  house,  and  carrying 
in  and  piling  up  the  wood.  When  summertime  with 
its  innumerable  delights  arrived  the  father  was  accus- 
tomed to  carry  them  off  with  him  on  fishing-parties 
to  the  little  neighboring  pond,  and  they  talked  theol- 
ogy on  the  way  and  held  good-natured  discussions 
on  the  greatest  and  smallest  themes. 


24  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Far  from  accurate  is  the  remark  of  the  least  wise  and 
careful  of  American  infidels  that  "Henry  Ward  Beecher 
was  born  in  a  Puritan  penitentiary  of  which  his  father 
was  one  of  the  wardens"  and  that  "the  natural 
desires  ungratified,  the  laughter  suppressed,  the  logic 
browbeaten  by  authority,  the  humor  frozen  by  fear 
of  many  generations,  were  in  this  child!"  Harriet 
Beecher  thought  her  child-life  happy,  and  probably 
there  was  never  an  American  home  in  which  freer 
play  was  given  to  the  emotions,  or  where  humor  and 
hilarity  were  more  continually  manifested  than  in  the 
home  of  Lyman  Beecher.  In  his  mature  life  he  said: 
"  There  is  not  a  place  in  the  old  Litchfield  house 
where  I  was  born  that  is  not  dear  to  my  eye,  and  my 
heart  blessed  the  old  house  for  all  that  it  had  in  it; 
for  all  the  care  it  had  had,  for  all  its  sweet  associa- 
tions. It  was  stained  through  with  soul  color.  It 
was  full,  as  it  were,  with  the  blood  of  life."1 

The  presence  of  boarders  in  the  great  house  helped 
out  the  meager  salary  of  eight  hundred  dollars  a  year 
on  which  Lyman  Beecher,  patriarch  as  well  as  apostle, 
was  to  feed,  clothe,  and  educate  the  most  remarkable 
and  "brainy"  lot  of  children  that  ever  came  to  an 
American  family.  There  were  also  frequent  parties 
in  the  Litchfield  manse,  and  the  piano  was  always 
going  and  songs  daily  sounded  from  the  parlor  win- 
dows of  this  "Puritan  penitentiary." 

Henry  Ward  has  written  much  of  the  deepest 
shadow  which  brooded  over  his  childhood,  the  Cate- 
chism, which  he  could  not  learn,  and  he  said  some 
extravagantly    abusive    things     of     that    marvelous 


1  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  251. 


THE    NURSE    OF    HIS    CHILDHOOD.  25 

abridgment  of  doctrine,  the  learning  of  which  was 
bone  and  muscle  to  many  of  the  sturdier  and  stronger 
minds  of  New  England.  In  an  address  made  before 
the  London  Congregational  Board  in  1886,  Beecher 
said  :  "  I  went  through  all  the  colic  and  anguish  of 
hyper-Calvinism  when  I  was  quite  young.  Happily 
my  constitution  was  strong.  I  regard  the  old  hyper- 
Calvinism  as  the  making  of  as  strong  minds  as  are  ever 
met  on  the  face  of  this  earth,  but  I  think  it  kills  five 
hundred  where  it  makes  one."  "When  I  was  a  boy 
eight  years  old  and  upwards,  I  knew  as  much  about 
decrees,  foreordination,  election,  reprobation,  as  you 
do  now.  I  used  to  be  under  a  murky  atmosphere,  and 
I  said  to  myself,  'O!  if  I  could  only  repent,  then  I 
should  have  a  Saviour.'  " 

But  though  Mr.  Beecher  was  always  exaggera- 
ting, because  he  felt  so  deeply,  the  unfortunate 
influences  which  were  ill-adapted  to  his  own  case, 
he  gratefully  remembered  what  his  father's  dis- 
position and  character  wrought  for  his  early 
training.  He  was  greatly  impressed  by  his  father's 
self-restraint  under  provocation,  and  he  recalls  how 
Dr.  Beecher  permitted  a  man  of  violent  temper  to 
scold  him  to  his  heart's  content,  and  then,  asking  the 
privilege  of  saying  a  word  in  reply,  he  answered  his 
violent  critic  so  thoroughly  as  to  entirely  change  his 
mind.  Henry  wras  greatly  influenced  by  the  unshrink- 
ing courage  of  the  father  in  trying  circumstances. 
Dr.  Beecher  acted  on  the  principle  that  if  a  thing  were 
difficult  of  doing,  that  was  the  reason  why  he  should 
do  it ;  and  his  father's  pluck  was  often  an  incentive 
which  greatly  helped  the  son  during  the  severe  trials 
of  his  Western  ministry. 


26  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

When  ten  years  of  age  Henry's  appearance,  as 
described  by  his  sister  Harriet,  was  that  of  a  stocky, 
strong  boy,  dutiful,  unquestioningly  obedient,  accus- 
tomed to  patient  work,  and  inured  to  hearing  and 
discussing  the  great  problems  of  Calvinism.  There 
was  great  freedom  and  independence  permitted  in 
Dr.  Beecher's  "penitentiary."  The  father  was  too 
busy  with  preaching  and  the  mother  too  busy  with 
her  children  to  give  any  one  child  great  attention. 
"The  uncaressing,  let-alone  system"  doubtless  helped 
to  those  habits  of  self-reliance  for  which  all  the 
Beechers  were  distinguished.  But,  while  Henry's 
early  development  was  marked  in  the  ways  already 
noted,  there  is  a  certain  barrenness  in  his  childhood 
which  must  be  felt  by  those  who  reflect  how  many 
appliances  are  now  used  to  make  children  happy. 
Thanksgiving  was  the  chief  holiday,  and  that  was 
marked  as  a  day  of  excessive  feeding.  The  delights 
of  Christmas  and  New  Year's  time  were  not  known, 
nor  the  more  refined  festivities  which  accompany  the 
Easter  rejoicings  in  our  Churches.  The  absence  of 
toys  and  gifts  and  choice  children's  literature  from 
those  early  days  has  been  noted.  It  is  probable  that 
the  children  of  a  well-to-do  American  family  receive, 
at  a  single  Christmas-time,  more  good  literature  than 
ever  came  into  the  hands  of  the  young  Beechers  at 
Litchfield. 

But  little  was  made  of  children  in  those  days  ; 
they  were  personally  insignificant  compared  with 
the  boys  and  girls  who  rule  our  households  now  ; 
and,  in  the  case  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  there 
was  added  the  pain  which  springs  from  bashfulness, 
sensitiveness,  and  from  indistinct  speech.     His  Aunt 


THE    NURSE    OF    HIS   CHILDHOOD.  27 

said:  "When  Henry  is  sent  to  me  with  a  message,  I 
always  have  to  make  him  say  it  three  times.  The 
first  time  I  have  no  manner  of  an  idea  any  more  than 
if  he  spoke  Choctaw;  the  second,  I  catch  now  and 
then  a  word;  and  the  third  time,  I  begin  to  under- 
stand." The  time  was  to  come  when  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  to  speak  with  no  uncertain  sound,  and 
when  the  whole  English-speaking  world  was  to  hear! 


CHAPTER    IV. 


THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN. 


Henry  Ward  Beecher  began  going  to  school  when 
he  was  only  four  years  of  age.  He  used  to  walk  to 
Ma'am  Kilbourn's  school  with  his  sister  Harriet,  and, 
when  there,  would  sit  daily  on  the  bench,  kicking  his 
heels  in  weary  idleness  and  saying  over  the  dreary 
letters  twice  a  day.  Still  he  was  out  of  the  way,  and, 
with  people  as  busy  as  the  Beechers,  this  meant  a 
great  deal.  Mrs.  Stowe  writes:1  "  He  was  my  two 
years  junior,  and  nearest  companion  out  of  seven 
brothers  and  three  sisters.  I  taught  him  drawing 
and  heard  his  Latin  lessons."  He  was  never  a  prom- 
ising learner  of  lessons,  and  his  first  school,  where 
the  hours  went  slowly  by  and  where  the  big  girls 
sawed  off  with  tin  shears  some  of  his  long  golden 
curls,  was  not  a  youthful  paradise. 

From  this  school  he  went  to  the  district  schoolhouse, 
where  the  exercises  were  daily  readings  from  the  Bible 
and  the  Columbian  Orator,  with  "  sums  "  from  the  Ele- 
mentary Arithmetic  and  the  practice  of  handwriting. 
The  switch  and  the  ferule  were  a  part  of  the  teacher's 
armory,  but  they  gave   no  such   misery   as  the  long 


1  Letter  to  George  Eliot  ("  The  Life  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe," 
P-  475)- 


"  THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN.  29 

weariness  and  agony  of  the  constant  effort  to  keep 
still. 

Mr.  Beecher  has  given  a  picturesque  description 
of  the  district  schoolhouse,  the  small,  square  pine 
building,  blazing  in  the  sun,  with  a  huge  pile  of  wood 
before  it  in  the  winter  and  piles  of  chips  in  the  sum- 
mer. We  cannot  withhold  our  sympathy  from  the 
boy  whose  restless  legs  kept  swinging  under  the  seat, 
and  we  can  almost  hear  the  voice  of  the  master,  when, 
bringing  his  hickory  ferule  down  on  the  desk,  he 
roars  out  "  Silence."  We  hear  the  occasional  laugh 
and  the  not  infrequent  slap,  and  we  realize  some  of 
the  beneficent  changes  which  have  made  the  school- 
rooms to-day  delightful  to  many,  if  not  to  most,  of 
our  children.  Mr.  Beecher  tells  us  that  he  and  his 
fellow  sufferers  felt  thankful  to  every  meadow-lark 
which  came  into  sight,  and  envied  the  flies  more  than 
anything  else,  unless  it  were  the  birds  which  were 
glimpsed  through  the  open  windows. 

Henry's  progress  was  not  satisfactory.  His  back- 
wardness was  due  not  so  much  to  his  lack  of  verbal 
memory  or  to  any  mental  dullness,  as  to  the  methods 
of  teaching  which  then  prevailed.  He  was  taken  to 
Mr.  Brace's  select  school  in  Litchfield  for  one  year, 
and  then,  when  ten  years  of  age,  was  sent  to  the 
school  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Langdon  in  the  town  of 
Bethlehem  a  few  miles  away.  He  remained  there 
only  a  year,  having  acquired  from  his  early  experi- 
ences a  distaste  for  school-life  and  for  prescribed 
study.  But  he  had  splendid  opportunities  for  roam- 
ing through  field  and  wood,  even  though  he  made  but 
slight  progress  in  his  books  and  was  a  wretchedly  bad 
speller  and  even  "  cribbed  "  his  Latin  recitations.  He 


30  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

studied  Nature  with  a  gun  over  his  shoulder,  even 
though  he  made  but  little  advancement  in  learning 
the  tongue  of  the  military  masters  of  the  ancient 
world. 

Though  he  had  no  pleasant  recollections  of  his 
earlier  school-days,  we  find  it  agreeable  to  recall 
his  first  theological  battle.  At  the  private  school  in 
Bethlehem  one  of  the  schoolboys,  older  than  most  of 
them,  paraded  the  objections  to  the  Bible  which  he 
had  drawn  from  the  reading  of  Paine's  "  Age  of 
Reason."  But  Henry  Ward,  believing  that  he  was 
wrong,  replied  to  him  thoroughly.  After  making 
careful  preparation  by  the  study  of  Watson's  "  Apol- 
ogy," he  challenged  the  big  boy  to  a  discussion,  and 
by  the  acclamations  of  his  schoolfellows  he  was  hailed 
as  victor  in  the  debate. 

Four  schools  had  now  been  tried  with  indifferent 
success.  It  was  thought  wise  by  his  persevering  pa- 
rents to  try  also  the  fifth.  Henry  was  sent  to  Hartford, 
where  his  oldest  sister  Catherine  was  teaching.  He 
tarried  there  only  six  months,  having  gained  consider- 
able distinction  as  a  small  specimen  of  perpetual 
motion.  He  also  won  repute  by  his  remarkable  ability 
in  giving  provokingly  funny  or  deliberately  wrong 
answers.  He  returned  home  with  the  reputation  of 
being  a  poor  scholar,  a  great  joker,  and  a  boy  who 
had  much  within  him  that  might  yet  be  developed. 

While  the  outer  manifestations  of  his  life  up  to  this 
time  were  those  of  an  irrepressible,  effervescent  and 
fun-loving  boy,  there  was  beneath  all  a  poetic,  yearn- 
ing, and  even  melancholy  spirit.  In  this  respect  the 
child  was  conspicuously  "  the  father  of  the  man." 
This     growing,    healthy,     hungry,    curious-minded, 


"the  father  of  the  man.  31 

prankish  boy,  who  fondly  loved  the  good  things  which 
Nature  furnished  in  winter  and  summer,  found  his 
best  schooling  out  of  doors.  Throughout  his  life  he 
had  great  sympathy  with  the  sentiment  expressed  in 
Lowell's  lines  : 

"  Merely  to  bask  and  ripen  is  sometimes 
The  student's  wiser  business;  the  brain 
That  forages  all  climes  to  line  its  cells, 
Ranging  both  worlds  on  lightest  wings  of  wish, 
Will  not  distil  the  juices  it  has  sucked 
To  the  sweet  substance  of  pellucid  thought, 
Except  for  him  who  hath  the  secret  learned 
To  mix  his  blood  with  sunshine,  and  to  take 
The  winds  into  his  pulses." 

Though  dull  at  first  to  ordinary  book-knowledge, 
the  clouds  and  the  elms,  the  birds  and  the  ponds  and 
the  trout-streams  found  Henry  a  good  scholar.  He 
knew  where  to  see  the  squirrels  and  find  the  sweet- 
flag,  the  sassafras  bushes,  the  chestnuts,  and  the  hick- 
ories. His  attachment  to  old  Litchfield  was  mainly 
an  attachment  to  what  Nature  showed  to  him  there. 
He  loved  the  hills  and  the  majestic  trees  which  the 
storms  beat  upon  fiercely  through  the  long,  cold  winter 
and  gently  caressed  in  the  warm  summer  days.  And 
Litchfield  was  a  wholesome  and  breezy  height  for  a 
strong  boy's  early  experiences.  What  he  saw  and 
felt  and  dreamed  and  did  was  a  prophecy  of  his 
own  wholesome,  many-sided,  unconventional,  and  far- 
reaching  life.  "  His  strong,  tireless,  responsible,  mag- 
nificent physique  dates  its  notable  beginning  to  the 
air,  sunshine,  freedom,  and  healthfulnessof  the  Litch- 
field hill-tops."  : 


1  Rev.  Frank  S.  Child's  "  Boyliood  of  Beecher,"  p.  29. 


32  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

"  With  the  innocent  abandon  of  childhood,  he  flung 
himself  upon  the  bosom  of  Mother  Nature,  and 
drew  priceless  inspiration  from  her  love-work.  And 
seasons  mattered  little  to  the  observant  child  of 
Nature.  The  wild  storms  of  December  made  their 
own  strange  revelations  to  his  awakened  fancy.  The 
crystal  snow-flake  and  the  glittering  icicle  turned 
him  into  keen  inquisitor.  The  rough  usage  of  the 
winds,  when  they  wrestled  with  him  amid  the  snow- 
drifts, schooled  him  into  rugged  endurance.  He 
heard  strange  voices  through  the  storms — he  caught 
the  dissolving  pictures  of  shy  faces  in  the  frost-work. 
The  besparkled  trees  of  February  thaw — the  myriad- 
colored  forests  of  October — the  delicate  greens  of  the 
nascent  leaves  in  May-time — they  were  all  cherished 
by  this  devotee  of  Nature,  and  their  suggestiveness 
had  large  share  in  fashioning  the  current  of  his 
thought."  ' 

But  the  chief  facts  of  all  life  reach  down  to  those 
deep  verities  on  which  religion  is  built.  That  is  not 
first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural,  and 
yet  into  these  early  days  came  serious  and  lasting 
impressions.  In  1817,  his  stepmother  wrote:  "Our 
religious  privileges  are  very  great.  Church  meetings 
are  interesting,  and  our  domestic  worship  very 
delightful.  We  sing  a  good  deal,  and  have  reading 
aloud  as  much  as  we  can."  2  Rev.  Thomas  K.  Beecher 
records  that  the  family  prayers  propagated  the 
ancestral  religion  in  his  brother,  though  they  failed 
to  hand  down  the  ancestral  theology.3     Henry  had  a 


1  "  Boyhood  of  Beecher,"  p.  27. 

s  "  Autobiography  of  Lyman  Beecher,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  369. 

*  "  Biography,"  p.  91. 


"the  father  of  the  man."  33 

sensitive  conscience,  and  when,  in  anger,  he  once 
uttered  a  profane  oath,  he  was  so  deeply  impressed 
with  his  guilt  that  he  believed  his  soul  was  lost  for 
ever.  When  his  stepmother  heard  the  bell  tolling  the 
death  of  some  villager,  she  said,  "  Henry,  what  do  you 
think  when  you  hear  that?"  "I  think,  was  that  soul 
prepared  ?  It  has  gone  to  eternity."  Beecher,  the 
man,  did  not  believe  that  he  was  greatly  guilty  for 
the  small  sins  of  childhood;  and  religion  came  to  him 
not  so  much  through  an  experience  or  consciousness 
of  sin,  as  through  the  bright  revelation  of  heavenly 
love. 

Sunday  was  not  altogether  a  cheerful  day  in  his 
early  life.  The  coming  on  of  Saturday  night  was  a 
serious  thing.  It  appeared  to  him  that  the  frogs 
croaked  more  dismally  then.  Every  kind  of  work 
had  to  be  finished  before  Sunday  dawned.  The 
children  must  be  made  clean  and  the  boys'  Sunday' 
pockets  purged  of  such  temptations  as  knives,  marbles, 
and  fish-hooks.  Beecher  was  not  always  consistent 
in  his  memories  of  early  impressions  ;  and  doubtless 
those  impressions  were  twofold,  and  both  sides  of 
them  were  vivid  in  his  mind.  "  I  admire  Sunday,  I 
admire  the  old  Jewish  Sabbath,  and  I  think  New 
England  owes  much  to  it.  One  of  the  sweetest  of 
my  reminiscences  is  that  of  the  old  breezy  hilltop  in 
Litchfield  on  Sunday  ;  of  the  Sunday  sun,  and  the 
Sunday  birds,  and  the  Sunday  shimmering  Mount 
Tom,  and  the  Sunday  elm-trees,  and  the  Sunday 
scenes,  some  of  which  were  touching  and  some  ludi- 
crous. As  I  recall  it  Sunday  was  a  great  moral  power."  l 


1  "Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  TIL,  p.  232. 

3 


34  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

If  we  would  know  his  full  thought  of  the  New  England 
rest-day  and  its  wonderful  influence  over  his  early  life, 
we  must  recall  what  he  says  of  it  in  "Norwood."  "It 
is  worth  all  the  inconveniences  arising  from  the 
occasional  over-action  of  New  England  Sabbath 
observance  to  obtain  the  full  flavor  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Sunday.  But  for  this,  one  should  have  been 
born  there  ;  should  have  found  Sunday  already 
waiting  for  him."  "Over  all  the  town  rested  the 
Lord's  peace.  The  saw  was  ripping  away  yesterday 
in  the  carpenter-shop  and  the  hammer  was  noisy 
enough.  To-day  there  is  not  a  sign  of  life  there. 
The  anvil  makes  no  music  to-day,  the  mill  is  silent, 
only  the  brook  continues  noisy.  In  yonder  pine 
woods  what  a  cawing  of  crows  !  Sunday  is  the  birds' 
day,  and  they  will  have  their  own  democratic  worship." 
But  Sunday  hours  in  church  were  not  altogether 
cheerful  with  him  ;  his  animal  spirits  were  too  vigor- 
ous to  be  easily  or  perfectly  restrained,  and  the 
preaching  availed  him  but  little  until  after  he  was 
fifteen  years  old.  And  yet  he  says  that  "it  did  its 
work  upon  the  imagination  if  not  upon  the  reason." 
When  he  was  twelve  years  of  age  there  sprang  up  a 
revival  in  Litchfield,  in  the  progress  of  which  the 
famous  Mr.  Nettleton  assisted  Lyman  Beecher. 
Henry's  mind  did  not  easily  open  to  the  religious 
teaching  then  prevalent  and  popular,  and  no  deep 
impressions  appear  to  have  been  made  upon  him 
although  he  was  disposed  to  serious  thought.  He 
got  hold  of  some  things  in  the  services  which  he 
attended,  and  truth,  especially  in  its  speculative  parts, 
was  lodged  in  his  mind.  Though  he  had  no  vices, 
he  came  at  last,  like  many  other  persons  under  simi- 


"THE    FATHER    OF    THE    MAN.  35 

lar  training,  to  think   himself  a  great  sinner  and  he 
imagined  that  he  was  not  "  elected." 

Greatly  moved  by  the  tolling  of  the  bell  which 
announced  the  funeral  of  a  companion,  he  needed 
such  quieting  and  encouraging  influence  as  a  wise  and 
sympathetic  Christian,  like  his  own  mother,  might 
have  given  him.  He  did  not  think,  in  later  years, 
that  the  mercy  of  God  was  preached  to  him  in  his 
youth.  He  supposed  he  was  writhing  under  sin,  and 
he  thought  he  was  on  the  way  toivard  conversion.  As 
yet,  however,  he  knew  not  God  as  the  all-loving 
Father  who  loved  the  sinner  in  spite  of  his  sin.  "  He 
is  thus  early  groping,  unresting,  and  unsatisfied  ; 
but  it  is  among  mountains  and  not  in  marshes  and 
quicksands.  Some  day  these  mountain  truths,  among 
which  he  now  wanders  in  darkness,  shall  be  radiant  in 
his  sight  with  divine  compassion,  and  his  gloom  shall 
give  place  to  abiding  love,  joy,  and  peace."1  He 
thought  that  a  converted  sinner  might  be  saved,  but 
for  a  "  poor,  miserable,  faulty  boy  that  pouted,  and 
got  mad  at  his  brothers  and  sisters  and  did  a  great 
many  naughty  things  there  was  no  salvation."  A 
new  and  greater  world,  however,  and  new  and  larger 
experiences  were  about  to  dawn  on  his  unfolding  life. 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  81. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    BOY'S    PERIL    AND    ESCAPE. 

The  great  Unitarian  controversy  was  raging  in  New 
England.  The  old  Churches  in  Eastern  Massachu- 
setts had  been  torn  from  their  foundations.  Harvard 
College  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Unitarians.  The 
American  Unitarian  Association  was  formed  in  1825. 
There  was  crying  need  that  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher,  the 
most  eloquent  orthodox  minister  of  his  time,  should 
leave  his  Litchfield  parsonage  for  the  strife  and  tur- 
moil of  Boston,  where  the  bones  of  the  Puritan  Fath- 
ers rested  and  "  where  the  crown  had  been  torn  from 
the  brow  of  Jesus."  A  champion,  able  to  meet  the 
forces  of  theological  error,  was  required  in  the  very 
thick  of  that  momentous  battle.  Therefore,  in  1826, 
Dr.  Beecher  accepted  an  invitation  to  become  pastor 
of  the  Hanover  Street  Congregational  Church  at  the 
North  End  of  Boston.  There  he  flamed  forth  for 
six  years  and  a  half.  During  four  of  these  years  his 
scholarly  son,  Edward,  was  in  the  famous  Park  Street 
Church. 

Lyman  Beecher  had  a  great  following  in  the 
Puritan  metropolis.  He  did  not  slay  and  exter- 
minate heresy,  and  Theodore  Parker  did  not  root  up 
or  pull  down  New  England  orthodoxy.  But  Lyman 
Beecher  was  a  great  bulwark  in  defense  of  evangelical 


THE    BOY'S    PERIL    AND    ESCAPE.  37 

truth  and  he  certainly  exercised  a  tremendous 
influence  over  some  of  the  greatest  minds  of  that  time. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  M.  Storrs,  writing  of  Wendell 
Phillips  says:  "  It  is  one  of  the  facts  of  Phillips's  life, 
not  mentioned  now,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  that,  born 
and  educated,  and  having  in  Boston  his  social  and 
intellectual  habitat,  in  circles  that  sneered  at  ortho- 
doxy and  hated  it,  he  was  led  to  hear  Lyman  Beecher, 
then  freshly  come  from  Litchfield,  in  his  masterly 
expoundings  of  evangelical  truth,  discriminated  from 
Unitarian  misrepresentation  on  the  one  side,  and  from 
hyper-Calvinistic  travesties  of  it  on  the  other,  and 
that,  having  heard  and  become  convinced,  he  came  out, 
gave  himself  to  Christ  and  was  recognized  as  a  convert 
to  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord,  as  his  personal  Redeemer. 
.  .  .  Of  all  that  Lyman  Beecher  did  in  his  great  Bos- 
ton work,  what  one  item  was  of  more  account  to  after 
ages  than  this  individual  conversion  of  that  one  young 
man  ? " 

Thus  Henry  Ward,  a  healthy  lad  of  thirteen,  found 
himself  in  new  and  strange  surroundings.  Though 
the  wholesome  domestic  life  of  the  Beecher  house- 
hold was  unchanged,  though  father  and  mother  and 
brothers  were  about  him,  he  was  ushered  into  a  new 
and  perilous  experience.  While  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  family  was  intensified  by  theological  controver- 
sies, Henry  found  himself  in  the  midst  of  novel  sights 
and  scenes  which  made  a  deep  impression  on  his 
wondrously  impressible  nature.  Many  of  these 
impressions  were  wholesome.  He  has  told  us  what 
effect  upon  his  senses  and  glowing  imagination  was 
produced  by  the  church-bells  of  Boston,  and  espe- 
cially by  the  mysterious  and  wonderful  chimes. 


38  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

And  then  there  was  the  first  sight  of  the  ships,  and  of 
the  great  sea,  and  the  smell  of  the  sea-air,  and  the  ever- 
continuing  delight  of  wandering  about  the  wharves 
and  boarding  the  newly  arrived  vessels.  How  incred- 
ible it  would  then  have  seemed  to  this  boy  that  the 
time  was  coming,  when  he,  a  man  of  fifty,  was  to  look 
on  Boston  from  the  sea,  returning  from  England  where 
he  had  served  his  country,  in  her  hour  of  danger,  by 
unparalleled  oratorical  achievements.  And  there 
was  the  weekly  visit  to  Charlestown  and  the  Navy 
Yard;  there  were  the  long  rows  of  cannon  and  the 
mounted  sea-battery,  and  the  recollections  of  naval 
adventures  and  dreams  of  wonderful  things  far  away 
across  the  sea.  The  open  fields  had  been  exchanged  for 
the  imprisoning  house-walls  and  the  ram's-horn  streets 
of  Boston,  but  the  sea  gave  him  outlook,  and  lured  his 
mind  as  it  has  lured  so  many  other  daring  and  imag- 
inative spirits,  into  the  strange  realms  which  the 
ocean  both  hides  and  reveals.  He  had  an  almost 
irrepressible  desire  for  breaking  away.  His  studies 
were  not  congenial  to  him;  he  had  been  sent  to  the 
Boston  Latin  School  on  School  Street,  that  famous 
nursery  of  distinguished  men,  which  Sumner  had  just 
left,  and  Phillips  was  about  to  leave,  for  Harvard 
College. 

The  entreaties  of  his  father  and  mother,  the  fear 
of  being  disgraced  and  his  religious  sense  of  obli- 
gation led  him  to  a  dogged  sort  of  fidelity  in  learning 
prescribed  tasks,  but  the  Latin  School  "  was  to  him  a 
grim,  Sinaitic  desert."  He  was  more  at  home  among 
the  bobolinks  and  huckleberry  bushes  than  among 
the  keen,  studious,  and  masterful  intellects  of  the 
Boston   school.     "  His  life   was  a  desolation,  a  blind 


THE    BOY'S    PERIL    AND    ESCAPE.  39 

push  to  do  what  was  most  contrary  to  his  natural 
faculties,  repulsive  to  his  taste,  and  in  which,  with 
utmost  stress  and  strain  of  effort,  he  could  never  hope 
to  rise  above  mediocrity.  .  .  .  He  became  moody, 
restless,  and  irritable."  '  His  father  wisely  set  him  to 
the  reading  of  biographies,  naval  histories,  lives  of 
great  sailors  and  commanders.  Lord  Nelson  became 
his  hero.  He  determined  to  go  to  sea,  and  his  father 
learned  of  his  plan.  It  was  easy  for  Lyman  Beecher 
to  show  him  that,  if  he  were  to  be  a  sailor,  he  did  not 
wish  to  be  a  common  sailor  or  even  a  midshipman. 
Henry  confessed  that  he  wanted  ultimately  to  be  a 
commodore,  and  that  in  order  to  be  ready  for  such  a 
possible  fate  he  must  study  mathematics  and  naviga- 
tion. The  shrewd  and  kindly  father  thus  persuaded 
the  restless  boy  that  a  preparation  for  college  was 
needed,  and  Lyman  Beecher  earnestly  believed  that 
his  son  would  yet  enter  the  ministry. 

Thomas  K.  Beecher  has  given  us  interesting  pictures 
of  his  brother  Henry  in  his  Boston  life.  He  has  told 
us  what  a  hero  this  brother  was  to  him.  The  boy 
who  owned  the  long  sled  and  coasted  down  Copp's 
Hill,  and  skated  on  the  Mill  Dam,  and  ran  to  fires, 
and  could  play  on  the  flute,  and  who  stormed  off  to 
the  Latin  School,  and  could  jump  and  whirl  round 
the  horizontal  bar,  and  was  fearless  of  open  stable- 
doors  and  red  cows  with  monstrous  horns,  was  much 
more  of  a  hero  to  young  Thomas  than  was  the  quiet 
and  scholarly  brother  Edward.  In  Henry's  Boston 
experience  we  read  more  of  his  fights  with  the 
boys  and  of  the  violent  sports  and  pranks  in  which 


1  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  p.  517. 


40  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

he  was  supreme,  than  of  any  great  successes  in 
study. 

And  yet  it  was  a  time  of  important  mental  and  moral 
and  physical  changes.  His  boy  nature  was  swelling  out 
into  something  larger,  and  life  was  beginning  to  be 
something  besides  a  dream  and  a  joke.  Questions 
of  character,  of  duty,  of  service,  and  of  occupation, 
were  forced  upon  his  fermenting  and  developing  soul 
in  this  period  of  juvenile  turbulence.  The  restless 
desire  to  run  away  to  sea  was  a  natural  result  in  his 
case  of  his  excitation  and  also  of  his  moral  tempta- 
tions, for  he  has  left  on  record  the  confession  that, 
had  he  remained  much  longer  in  Boston,  he  would 
have  plunged  into  moral  ruin. 

He  was  sent  to  Mount  Pleasant  Institute  near 
Amherst  to  finish  his  preparation  for  admission  to  col- 
lege. This  exchange  of  surroundings  brought  him  once 
more  into  a  rural  and  more  congenial  environment. 
The  stage-coach  which  took  him  from  Boston  took 
him  away  from  unsatisfactory  and  unhealthful  con- 
ditions. Now  in  the  country  he  is  freer,  and  has 
something  to  live  for  which  excites  all  his  ambition. 
In  the  beginning  he  looked  forward  to  a  life  of  action, 
and  this  early  taste  for  a  military  life  reminds  us  of 
the  similar  early  experience  of  the  Rev.  Frederick  W. 
Robertson,  who  divides  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
the  fame  of  having  most  profoundly  impressed  the 
preaching  of  this  century.  In  the  Mount  Pleasant 
Academy,  with  its  semi-military  methods,  he  came 
under  the  influence  of  excellent  teachers  who  were 
thorough,  but  not  too  severe,  and  who  appear  to  have 
been  skillful  in  fashioning  his  mind.  Fie  went  through 
a    drill    in    elocution     under  Prof.    John  E.   Lovell, 


THE    BOYS    PERIL    AND    ESCAPE.  41 

of  whom  he  said  :  "A  better  teacher  in  his  department 
was  never  made."  This  early  training  was  of  vital 
importance  to  one  destined  to  reach  the  highest  fame 
as  an  orator. 

Under  Fitzgerald,  the  teacher  of  mathematics, 
Henry  Ward  was  intellectually  converted.  He 
was  taught  to  conquer  hard  lessons.  What 
most  children  learn  somewhat  earlier,  young 
Beecher  learned  at  a  later  period  and  learned  it 
thoroughly.  He  was  forced  to  defend  his  propositions 
or  his  solutions,  and  thus  gained  intellectual  self- 
confidence  and  self-control.  This  drill  in  mathemat- 
ics, supplemented  by  his  training  in  vocal  inflections, 
postures  and  gestures  was  the  beginning  of  mental 
enjoyment  and  aspiration.  He  was  patient  under  the 
long  elocutionary  discipline  to  which  he  was  subjected 
and,  in  later  life,  at  Lane  Theological  Seminary,  he 
continued  the  drill  himself  in  company  with  his 
brother  Charles.  His  fine  dramatic  power  after 
awhile  became  evident.  Lyman  Abbott  once  said  of 
him  that  "  his  face  would  have  made  him  a  fortune 
as  an  actor,"  and  it  is  amusing  to  remember  that,  in 
the  drama  of  William  Tell,  which  was  performed  by 
the  Mount  Pleasant  students,  this  champion  of  the 
lowly  took  the  part  of  the  tyrant  Gessler. 

Beecher's  love  of  flowers,  which  finally  became  such 
an  ardent  passion  with  him,  began  to  show  itself  in 
Amherst  and  he  was  sometimes  seen  bent  in  silent 
adoration  over  pansy  and  aster  beds,  "  feeding  his 
hungry  little  soul  with  the  beauty  of  their  forms  and 
colors.1'  School-life  seems  to  have  been  to  him,  in  this 
stage  of  his  career  what  it  is  to  most  earnest,  aspiring, 
and  much-tempted  boys.  It  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  he 


42  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

came  at  last  to  enjoy  his  Latin  fairly  well,  and  to 
make  some  progress  in  his  Greek.  Like  most  earnest 
students  he  was  immensely  busy,  and  found  it  hard 
to  get  time  for  his  daily  devotions.  It  is  said  that  he 
loved  to  pray  better  than  to  read  the  Scriptures. 

A  revival  came  to  the  Mount  Pleasant  school,  and,  in 
some  mysterious  way,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  he  was 
induced,  as  he  then  hoped,  to  give  his  heart  to  Christ 
the  Lord.  And,  though  his  serious  feelings  had 
almost  departed  from  him  after  a  short  time,  he  went 
home  to  Boston  to  join  himself  with  the  Hanover 
Street  Church.  His  father  had  sent  for  him,  and  the 
boy,  much  agitated,  full  of  vague  ideas  and  vague 
purposes,  took  upon  him  the  vows  of  open  discipleship. 
He  was  chilled  and  almost  paralyzed  by  the  committee 
who  examined  him  as  to  his  hope  and  his  evidences; 
his  heart  was  petrified  when  he  heard  his  name  called 
from  the  pulpit,  and  he  was  far  from  satisfied  that  he 
was  doing  right.  He  walked  home  crying,  filled  with 
inexplicable  wishes  and  longings,  not  thinking  that 
he  was  a  true  Christian,  suffering  from  a  mixture  of 
pride  and  humility  on  account  of  his  position.  There 
was  something  in  his  nature  which  required  a  new 
revelation  of  truth.  He  needed  to  be  touched  by  a 
great  experience,  in  order  that  the  many  orbs  of  bis 
wondrous  being  might  swing  into  an  abiding  harmony. 
He  was  deeply  moved  by  what  had  occurred  and  the 
change,  whatever  it  was  which  had  come  to  him, 
obliterated  for  ever  his  former  purpose  of  entering  on 
the  life  of  a  sailor. 

It  was  with  his  mind  turned  toward  the  min- 
istry that  he  went  back  to  Mount  Pleasant 
and    began    the    more    careful   study   of    the  Bible, 


THE    BOY  S    PERIL    AND    ESCAPE.  43 

especially  of  the  Evangelists.  He  soon  took 
up  the  Greek  Testament,  and  he  began  to  wonder 
whether  it  would  hurt  him  to  read  the  novels  of 
Scott  and  Cooper.  To  one  of  his  sisters  he  writes  : 
"  O  I  have  such  thoughts,  such  views  of  God  and 
His  love  and  mercy  that  my  heart  would  burst  through 
the  corrupt  body  of  this  world  and  soar  up  with  the 
angels."  But  this  uplifted  state  of  feeling  was  his 
while  in  meeting,  or  when  reading  some  inspiring 
book.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  recorded  that  he  was 
greatly  provoked  at  times  with  the  teacher  who 
scolded  and  ridiculed  him  during  recitation,  and  he 
believed  that  he  would  have  been  discouraged  had 
he  not  had  a  Divine  Friend  on  whom  he  could  lay 
what  seemed  his  great  troubles.  At  Amherst  he  gave 
the  first  indication  of  interest  in  and  of  fondness  for 
young  women,  and  he  became  the  enthusiastic  friend 
of  one  of  the  schoolboys.  They  pledged  to  each 
other  an  everlasting  fraternity  !  Thus  early  did 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  enter  into  that  beautiful  and 
perilous  world  of  friendship  wherein  he  was  to  enjoy 
so  keenly  and  suffer  so  terribly. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

AMHERST    COLLEGE   AND    HER    GREATEST   SON. 

"  The  end  of  learning,"  wrote  Milton,  in  his  great 
"  Tractate  on  Education,"  "  is  to  repair  the  ruins  of 
our  first  parents  by  regaining  to  know  God  aright, 
and  out  of  that  knowledge  to  love  Him,  to  imitate  Him, 
to  be  like  Him,  as  we  may  the  nearest  by  possess- 
ing our  souls  of  true  virtue,  which,  being  united  to  the 
Heavenly  grace  of  faith,  makes  up  the  highest  per- 
fection." School  and  college  life  did  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  noble  service  along  the  lines  which  the  great 
Puritan  poet  deemed  the  true  path  of  learning,  but 
his  greatest  schooling  in  divine  knowledge  came  in  a 
later  and  marvelous  personal  experience. 

In  1830,  he  was  ready  for  Amherst  College.  He 
had  made  such  excellent  preparation  that  he  was  able 
to  enter  the  Sophomore  class,  but,  owing  to  the  advice 
of  his  father,  he  decided  to  enter  the  Freshman  class, 
which  numbered  forty  members.  He,  who  was  to 
become  the  most  famous  graduate  of  that  splendid 
New  England  college,  was  then  seventeen  years  of 
age,  and  is  described  as  a  smooth-faced  and  bashful 
young  man  who  so  rapidly  changed  his  appearance 
that  sometimes  his  sisters  hardly  knew  him.  Dr. 
Heman  Humphrey,  father  of  famous  and  noble  men, 
was  then  the  President  of  Amherst  College,  which  was 


AMHERST    C01  LEGE    AND    HER    GREATEST    SON.        45 

at  that  time  nine  years  old.  He  had  studied  theology, 
like  Lyman  Beecher,  under  President  Dwight,  and, 
like  Dr.  Beecher,  was  an  earnest  apostle  of  temper- 
ance. "  He,  more  than  any  one  else,  was  instrumental 
in  giving  the  college  its  character.  Under  his  admin- 
istration the  purpose  of  its  founders  was  realized. 
They  desired  it  to  be  a  training-school  for  the  Church, 
a  seminary  for  the  education,  especially  of  ministers 
and  missionaries  of  the  Cross."  ' 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  could  never  have  achieved  the 
influence  and  fame  which  came  to  him  without  such 
training  as  was  given  by  these  years  at  Amherst. 
Having  acquired  by  Latin  and  mathematics  the  power 
of  prolonged  and  systematic  study,  he  was  ready  to 
pursue  those  investigations  which  he  most  liked.  It 
was  not  his  ambition  or  choice  to  lead  his  class  as  the 
best  scholar,  though  Lewis  Tappan,  aclassmate,  writes: 
"  In  logic  and  class  debates  no  one  could  approach 
him."  "  I  listened  to  his  flow  of  impassioned  eloquence 
in  those,  my  youthful  days,  with  wonder  and  admira- 
tion." 2  Beecher  says  of  himself,  "  I  knew  how  to  study 
and  I  turned  it  into  things  I  wanted  to  know."  The 
tastes  of  this  remarkable  man,  whom  Matthew  Arnold 
once  styled  a"  heated  barbarian,"  did  not  lead  him  to 
the  repeated  study  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  classical 
authors  so  dear  to  the  mind  of  this  semi-pagan  critic 
and  poet,  but  rather  to  the  great  English  classics 
whose  enthusiasm  and  eloquence  fired  his  imagination. 

Beecher  made  no  mean  figure  in  college  life.  His 
classmate,   Dr.    Field,  says   of   him:  "I    never  knew 


"  Memorial  Sketches  of  Heman  and  Sophia  Humphrey,"  p.  203. 
"  Biography,"  p.  115. 


46  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

anything  of  him  but  what  was  good  and  great  and 
orderly  and  becoming  a  Christian."  "  He  was  a  strong 
temperance  man,  and  was  very  bold  to  rebuke  his  fellow 
students  in  anything  he  thought  to  be  wrong."  '  In  the 
college  prayer-meetings  he  learned  to  speak  with 
fluency  and  with  fervid  eloquence.  His  written  essays 
were  the  admiration  of  the  college  on  account  of  their 
originality  and  freshness  One  of  his  productions  had 
for  its  theme  the  superiority  of  Pollock  over  Milton  as 
a  poet,  a  crude  literary  heresy  of  which  he  was 
undoubtedly  soon  cured.  "  He  had  always  something 
to  say  that  was  fresh  and  striking  and  out  of  the 
beaten  track  of  thought,  something,  too,  that  he  had 
not  gotten  from  books,  but  that  was  the  product  of  his 
own  thinking."  2  His  general  knowledge  was  unusu- 
ally wide  and  his  classmates  remember  with  admira- 
tion his  earnest  and  fiery  speech,  and  recall  with 
delight  his  general  cheerfulness  and  his  remarkable 
power  of  making  others  happy.  His  stories  and 
repartees  were  as  well  known  in  the  college  then  as 
they  have  since  become  within  the  bounds  of  civiliza- 
tion. Some  of  his  practical  jokes  became  famous, 
especially  that  one  where  he  provided  an  exceedingly 
low  chair  for  the  very  long-legged  tutor  in  mathe- 
matics who  came  to  his  room  for  the  purpose  of 
exhorting  him  on  account  of  some  petty  misdemeanor. 
In  his  sermon  on  the  death  of  Wendell  Phillips, 
Beecher  said  :  "  Fifty  years  ago,  during  my  college 
life,  I  was  chosen  by  the  Athenian  Society  to  debate 
the  question  of  African  Colonization,  which  was  then 
new,  fresh,  and   enthusiastic.     Fortunately   I  was  as- 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  115.     *  "  Biography,"  p.  113. 


AMHERST    COLLEGE    AND    HER    GREATEST    SON.        47 

signed  to  the  negative  side  of  the  question,  and  in 
preparing  the  speech,  I  prepared  for  my  whole  life. 
I  contended  against  colonization  as  a  condition  of 
emancipation  ;  enforced  colonization  was  but  little 
better  than  enforced  slavery,  and  advocated  immedi- 
ate emancipation  on  the  broad  ground  of  human 
rights.  I  knew  but  very  little  then,  but  I  knew  this, 
that  all  men  are  designed  of  God  to  be  free,  a  fact 
which  ought  to  be  the  text  of  every  man's  life — this 
sacredness  of  humanity  as  given  of  God;  redeemed 
from  animalism  by  Jesus  Christ,  crowned  and  clothed 
with  rights  that  no  law  nor  oppression  should  dare 
touch."  Thus  he  gave  early  signs  of  the  coming 
reformer  in  that  field  where  he  was  to  achieve  his 
grandest  renown.  And,  unlike  Wendell  Phillips,  who 
succeeded  in  preventing  the  formation  of  a  temper- 
ance society  in  Harvard  College,  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
was  an  earnest  temperance  advocate  during  his  col- 
lege-days. 

Old  Dr.  Beecher,  like  many  other  New  England 
ministers  with  large  families,  most  of  them  hungry 
for  an  education,  was  exceedingly  straitened  for 
money  during  the  time  that  Henry  was  at  Amherst. 
He  scarcely  knew  by  what  means  he  could  keep  his 
sons  at  study,  for  Charles  at  this  time  was  in  Bowdoin. 
He  had  an  anxious  conference  with  his  wife,  and  the 
wife  lay  awake  all  night  and  cried  about  it.  Dr. 
Beecher  said  :  "  The  Lord  has  always  taken  care  of 
me  and  I  am  sure  He  will."  The  next  morning  the 
door-bell  was  rung,  and  a  letter  containing  a  hundred 
dollar  bill  was  handed  in,  the  thank-offering  of  a 
parishioner  for  the  conversion  of  one  of  his  children. 
Meanwhile  Henry,  pursuing  his  independent  studies 


48  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

at  Amherst,  became  anxious  to  do  something.  He 
began  work  as  a  tract-distributor  or  Bible  agent, 
established  a  daily  prayer-meeting  and  prayed  earn- 
estly for  a  revival.  But  when  the  revival  came,  he 
entered  into  darkness,  had  no  real  joy,  and,  even 
doubting  his  conversion,  went  to  good  Dr.  Hum- 
phrey in  his  wretchedness  and  told  the  President  he 
wanted  to  be  a  Christian.  He  went  away,  however, 
in  deeper  darkness.1  Professor  Hitchcock,  to  whom 
he  then  applied,  was  unable  to  help  him.  Then  the 
moody,  earnest  young  man  resorted  to  prayer.  He 
says  he  frequently  prayed  all  night,  or  would  have 
done  so  if  he  hadn't  gone  to  sleep.  He  found  relief 
in  the  thought  of  God's  faithfulness  to  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  Him.  All  things  became  bright  for 
awhile,  and  he  wisely  endeavored  to  help  others  in 
their  spiritual  unrest  and  distress.  Yet  the  old 
moodiness  returned.  He  had  a  reaction,  and  entered 
again  into  darkness  and  hopelessness.  His  chief  help 
he  found  in  the  companionship  of  one  Harrington, 
whom  he  long  remembered  with  affectionate  grati- 
tude. 


1  Referring  to  this  in  his  "Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  he  says: 
I  recollect  going  clown  to  Dr.  Humphrey's  in  a  state  of  prodigious 
mental  excitement  on  my  own  behalf,  and  asking  for  some  instruc- 
tion that  I  might  ease  myself  of  my  burden  and  be  brought  to  a 
saving  knowledge  of  Christ;  and  he  said  to  me:  "My  young  friend, 
you  are  manifestly  under  the  strivings  of  God's  Spirit,  and  I  dare 
not  touch  the  Ark  with  profane  hand.  The  Spirit  of  God  when  He 
strives  with  a  man,  is  His  own  best  interpreter."  And  so  he  left 
me  to  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  whereas,  if  I  had  had  but  a  very 
little  clear  instruction,  it  would  have  saved  me  years  of  anxiety, 
and  at  times,  positive  anguish,  for  want  of  knowledge. — "  Yale 
Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  II.,  pp.  241-242. 


AMHERST    COLLEGE   AND    HER    GREATEST    SON.        49 

In  his  Sophomore  year,  1831,  he  became  engaged 
to  Miss  Eunice  White  Bullard,  whom  he  afterwards 
married  and  who  survives  him.  She  was  born  in 
West  Sutton,  Massachusetts,  August  6,  1812,  and 
thus  was  ten  months  his  senior.  She  was  educated 
at  Hadley.  Mrs.  Beecher  writes  :  "  My  first  meeting 
with  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  in  the  early  part  of 
May,  1830.  He  was  a  classmate  of  a  brother  of  mine 
at  Amherst  College.  The  two  were  just  out  of  their 
Freshman  year  when,  together  with  another  college 
classmate,  they  walked  from  Amherst  to  my  father's 
house  at  West  Sutton  for  their  spring  vacation.  At 
that  time  young  Beecher  was  not  quite  seventeen 
years  old,  and  so  young  and  boyish  was  his  appear- 
ance that  no  one  would  have  thought  him  more  than 
fifteen."  ' 

Beecher  brought  great  life  to  the  West  Sutton 
household,  and  his  winning  gentleness  and  irrepress- 
ible fun  were  particularly  enjoyed.  Miss  Bullard's 
father  said  of  him  :  "  Well,  he  is  smart  !  He'll  make 
his  mark  in  the  world  if  he  lives."  And  her  mother 
often  said  of  him  :  "  Henry  always  brings  sunshine 
and  makes  me  feel  young."  Mrs.  Beecher  records 
that  "  as  a  young  man  he  was  unusually  free  from  any 
bad  habits.  He  never  smoked  nor  used  tobacco  in 
any  form  either  as  a  boy,  youth,  or  full-grown  young 
man.  He  never  indulged  in  a  drop  of  liquor.  His 
language  was  as  pure  when  among  his  companions 
as  when  in  the  parlor.  He  rejected  all  indulgences. 
As  a  young  man  he  never  played  cards  ;  indeed,  he 


1  "  Mr.    Beecher    as    I    Knew     Him,"    Ladies'   Home  Journal, 
October,  1891. 

4 


50  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

never  knew  one  card  from  another.  He  avoided  all 
these  habits  in  his  later  years,  although  he  had  no 
prejudice  against  the  playing  of  cards  by  others,  if 
played  for  amusement  and  at  home.  After  coming 
to  Brooklyn,  we  both  learned  to  play  backgammon. 
It  was  a  quiet  game  and  he  said  it  helped  him  to  a 
good  night's  rest  if  his  labors  during  the  day  had 
excited  him  so  much  as  to  retard  his  usually  sound 
sleep."  ' 

When  Mr.  Beecher's  engagement  was  announced 
to  the  parents  the  father  was  angry  and  the 
mother  greatly  grieved.  "  Why  you  are  a  couple 
of  babies,"  he  said,  "you  don't  know  your  own 
minds  and  you  wont  for  some  years  to  come." 
Mrs.  Beecher  adds,  "  but  fifty-seven  years  have 
given  ample  proof  that  we  did."  Henry's  wonder- 
fully earnest  appeal  overcame  at  last  all  the  oppo- 
sition in  the  heart  of  the  strong,  proud  man  who 
doubted  the  strength  of  that  affection  which  was 
destined  to  endure  so  long.  Mrs.  Beecher  records 
that  Henry  at  this  time  was  an  exceedingly  homely 
young  man,  and  a  portrait  of  him  at  seventeen,  the 
first  portrait  ever  taken  of  one  who  has  been  portrayed 
in  hundreds  of  aspects,  is  certainly  the  least  engag- 
ing of  all  his  pictures. 

But  it  is  not  needful  to  elaborate  the  details  which 
have  come  down  to  us  of  Beecher's  college  years. 
Always  active  in  learning  or  doing;  teaching  a  school 
in  the  village  of  West  Sutton,  giving  temperance 
lectures,  for  one  of  which  he    received  a  fee  of  five 


1  "  Mr.    Beecher   as    I    Knew    Him,"    Ladies'  Houu  Journal, 
October,  1891. 


AMHERST    COLLEGE    AND    HER    GREATEST    SON.         5 1 

dollars  from  which  he  made  a  present  of  Baxter's 
"Saints'  Rest "  to  his  beloved;  walking,  during  a 
college  vacation,  to  Brattleboro,  Vermont,  and  re- 
ceiving ten  dollars  for  the  address  he  gave  there, 
and  with  this  large  sum  buying  Miss  Bullard's  en- 
gagement-ring which  was  also  her  wedding-ring  ; 
preaching  his  first  sermon  in  Northbridge,  Massa- 
chusetts, where  he  taught  school  in  1831  and  1833  ; 
teaching  school  in  Hopkinton,  Massachusetts,  where 
he  carried  on  a  revival  meeting  in  the  evenings;  begin- 
ning the  study  of  phrenology  in  his  Sophomore  year, 
a  study  which  he  was  destined  to  continue  through 
life;  beginning  the  collection  of  a  library  out  of  his 
small  money  allowances  and  small  earnings;  writing 
his  first  article,  printed  in  the  college  paper,  on  the 
scenery  which  had  excited  his  imagination  in  one  of 
his  lecture  tramps;  rejoicing  in  being  able  to  add  to 
his  library  a  splendid  copy  of  the  works  of  Edmund 
Burke,  the  study  of  which  added  strength  and  splendor 
to  his  style;  forsaking  all  wasteful  expenditures  that 
he  might  increase  his  stock  of  books;  reading  largely 
and  widely  from  the  old  English  writers, — such  is  a 
partial  record  of  those  eager  preparatory  days  at 
Amherst. 

One  poem  of  Samuel  Daniel,  who  was  the  laureate 
of  Queen  Elizabeth  until  Ben  Jonson  super- 
seded him,  so  greatly  fascinated  Beecher  in  his 
youth  that  he  was  accustomed  to  read  it  over  and 
over.  It  was  composed  of  lines  addressed  by  Daniel 
to  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  Mr.  Beecher  says 
they  were  about  the  only  piece  of  poetry  he  ever 
committed  to  memory.  As  a  good  deal  in  Mr. 
Beecher's  future  trial,  struggle,  and  character  is  sug- 


52  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

gested    in  these    strong  lines,  they  are    worth  read 
ing. 

"He  who  hath  never  warred  with  misery, 
Nor  ever  tugged  with  fortune  in  distress, 
Hath  no  occasion  and  no  field  to  try 
The  strength  and  forces  of  his  worthiness. 
Those  parts  of  judgment  which  felicity 
Keeps  as  concealed,  affliction  must  express, 
And  only  men  show  their  abilities 
And  what  they  are,  in  their  extremities." 

"Mutius  the  fire,  the  tortures  Regulus, 
Did  make  the  miracles  of  faith  and  zeal  ; 
Exile  renowned  and  graced  Rutilius, 
Imprisonment  and  poison  did  reveal 
The  worth  of  Socrates,  Fabricius, 
Poverty  did  grace  that  common  weal 
More  than  all  Sylla's  riches  got  with  strife, 
And  Cato's  death  did  vie  with  Caesar's  life." 

"  Such  an  enthusiasm,"  said  Mrs.  Stowe,  "  shows 
clearly  on  what  a  key  the  young  man  had  set  his  life- 
purposes  and  what  he  was  looking  for  in  his  life-bat- 
tle."1 Another  poem  had  a  great  fascination  for 
him.  It  was  Daniel's  address  to  Lady  Margaret, 
Countess  of  Cumberland,  one  specimen  of  which  is 
the  following: 

"  He  that  of  such  a  height  hath  built  his  mind, 
And  reared  the  dwelling  of  his  thought  so  strong 
As  neither  fear  nor  hope  can  shake  the  frame 
Of  his  resolved  powers  ;  nor  all  the  wind 


'  "  Men  of  our  Times,"  p.  528. 


AMHERST    COLLEGE    AND    HER    GREATEST    SON.        53 

Of  vanity  or  malice  pierce  to  wrong 
His  settled  peace,  or  to  disturb  the  same ; 
What  a  fair  seat  hath  he  !     From  whence  he  may 
The  boundless  wastes  and  wilds  of  man  survey." 

"  It  has  had  a  good  long  swing,"  said  Beecher,  "  and 
it  will  go  rolling  down  a  great  many  years  yet." 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  fortunate  than  his 
early  enthusiastic  study  of  the  English  classic  poets. 

The  poets  are  the  best  teachers  of  language  and  no 
nation  was  ever  favored  by  a  group  of  singers  equal 
to  those  who  clustered  around  London  in  the  days  of 
Elizabeth,  James,  and  the  first  Charles.  The  reading 
of  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  Daniel,  and  Milton  by  a  mind 
of  his  temperament,  with  his  work  to  do  in  the  world, 
was  one  of  the  chief  events  in  his  intellectual  develop- 
ment. He  may  not  have  deemed  it  so  important  as 
his  study  of  phrenology,  but  it  was  vastly  more  neces- 
sary to  the  life  which  Providence  had  marked  out  for 
him.  While  in  college  he  read  the  works  of  Combe, 
Gall,  and  Spurzheim,  formed  a  Phrenological  Club, 
and  lectured  on  phrenology,  that  empirical  system 
whose  principles  or  speculations  are  very  old  and 
which  has  of  recent  days  captivated  even  such  men 
as  Sir  George  McKenzie,  Archbishop  Whateley,  and 
Geoffroy  St.  Hilare.  This  early  enthusiasm  for 
phrenology  was  in  some  respects  a  piece  of  good  for- 
tune. It  led  him  into  physiological  and  scientific 
studies  and  these  continued  through  life.  He  made 
more  use  of  his  physiological  knowledge  in  his  subse- 
quent preaching  than  he  did  of  the  Scotch  metaphysics 
which  he  grappled  with  while  in  college.  However 
questionable  phrenology  may  be  as  a  science,  it  was 
an  exceeding  great   help   to   Beecher    in   describing 


54  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

human  nature.  It  aided  him  to  appreciate  the  com- 
plexity of  the  human  mind  and  the  variety  of  motives 
by  which  human  life  is  actuated.  The  faculties,  it  is 
said,  became  to  him  like  persons,  and  though  he 
never  preached  phrenology  as  a  science,  he  always 
used  its  terms,  finding  the  classification  helpful.  He 
wanted  to  be  judged,  in  his  later  theological  state- 
ments, by  this  philosophy  which  he  early  adopted  for 
popular  use.  He  believed  that  misunderstandings 
would  thus  be  avoided,  and  he  was  confident  that, 
through  his  scientific  and  philosophical  views,  he  had 
reached  a  deeper,  more  reasonable,  and  abiding  faith 
in  the  Word  of  God. 

During  the  last  two  years  of  his  college  life 
he  was  in  earnest  sympathy  with  his  father  in 
his  great  battle  against  Unitarianism  in  Boston, 
and  he  became  familiar  with  all  the  distinctions 
in  the  theological  quarrel  in  New  England.  But  the 
lives  of  both  father  and  son  were  to  be  transplanted 
to  a  fresher  field  which  proved  also  to  be  a  field  of 
battle.  They  had  been  conservatives  in  the  East. 
They  were  to  contend  with  ultra-theological  conserva- 
tism in  the  West. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY    OF   DECISION. 

Lane  Theological  Seminary,  or  "  Kemper-Lane," 
as  it  might  well  have  been  named,  on  Walnut  Hills, 
near  Cincinnati,  had  been  established  by  earnest  and 
far-seeing  Christian  men,  for  the  purpose  of  training 
preachers  for  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  valleys,  into 
which  the  tides  of  population  were  rapidly  pouring. 
"  Kemper  gave  the  land,  and  Lane  the  money."1  It 
was  then  thought  that  Cincinnati  was  to  be  the 
central  and  controlling  city  of  the  mighty  West.  Dr. 
Lyman  Beecher  was  deemed  the  best  man  in  the 
country  to  become  the  head  of  this  school  of  the 
prophets.  He  entered  with  energy  and  evangelical 
enthusiasm  on  this  important  work,  which  alone 
seemed  to  him  to  surpass  the  commanding  influence 
of  his  New  England  pulpit.  Drawing  to  him  a  fine 
class  of  Christian  young  men,  he  instructed  and 
fired  them  with  his  own  devout  enthusiasm. 

Cincinnati  was  at  that  time  a  community  where  the 
tides  of  life  from  East  and  West,  North  and  South 
seemed  to  flow  together.  "  An  immense  commerce  was 
carried  on  from  its  wharves;  it  was  the  point  where 
gathered    the    multitudes    that   were   going    out    to 


1  "   Sixtieth    Anniversary  of  Lane  Theological  Seminary,"  p.  5. 


56  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

occupy  the  new  territory;  it  was  still  the  rendezvous 
of  frontiersmen;  more  than  this,  it  lay  upon  the  bor- 
derland between  the  Free  and  Slave  States,  and 
already  felt  the  uneasiness  and  bitterness  of  the  irre- 
pressible conflict.  Chain-gangs  of  slaves  were  con- 
tinually passing  on  the  docks  to  the  steamboats  to  be 
sold  down  South,  and  fugitives  from  bondage  were 
keeping  the  sympathy  or  the  hatred  of  the  people 
in  continual  activity."  ' 

Into  this  great  valley  of  decision,  into  the  earnest 
and  various  life  of  the  Seminary  and  of  the  large 
Beecher  household,  Henry  Ward  now  entered,  having 
completed,  in  1834,  his  course  at  Amherst  College. 
Lane  Seminary,  "  a  brick  building  in  the  woods  of 
Ohio,"  where  the  students  could  hear  the  "  whistle  of 
the  quail,  the  scolding  squirrels,  .  .  .  the  soft 
thump  and  pat  of  the  rabbit,  and  the  breezy  rush  of 
the  wild  pigeons,"  furnished  such  a  blending  of  the 
attractions  of  Nature  and  learning  that  it  seems  like 
an  ideal  place  for  such  a  mind  as  young  Beecher's. 
It  was  a  place  of  freedom  and  of  zealous  work.  The 
forest  which  lay  between  the  Seminary  and  Lyman 
Beecher's  house  was  made  "  to  ring  with  vocal  prac- 
tice and  musical  scales  in  imitation  of  band  music  " 
by  Lyman  Beecher's  stentorian  sons,  Henry  and 
Charles.  It  was  fortunate  for  the  future  pastor 
of  Plymouth  Church  that  he  then  came  under  the 
wise  instruction  of  Prof.  Calvin  E.  Stowe,  who 
was  soon  to  be  married  to  his  sister  Harriet.  For 
Professor  Stowe  he  entertained,  through  life,  the 
warmest   friendship,  and    by  him   he  was   led   into  a 


"  Biography,"  p.  153. 


IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY    OF   DECISION.  57 

thorough  study  and  analysis  of  the  Bible,  "  not  as  the 
parts  of  a  machine,  but  as  a  body  of  truth  instinct 
with  God,  warm  with  all  divine  and  human  sympa- 
thies, clothed  with  language  adapted  to  their  best 
expression,  and  to  be  understood  as  similar  language 
used  for  similar  ends  in  every-day  life."1  Mr. 
Beecher's  claim  to  be  a  Biblical  preacher,  though 
frequently  and,  perhaps,  generally  denied,  must 
be  vindicated,  if  at  all,  by  his  frequent  use  and 
explanation  of  large  tracts  of  Scripture.  In  his 
reading  from  the  New  Testament,  particularly, 
he  was  wont  to  comment  with  singular  freshness  of 
thought  and  expression  on  the  passages  he  had  read, 
especially  when  they  were  found  in  Paul's  Epistles. 
And,  though  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  great 
Apostle  would  have  sometimes  failed  to  recog- 
nize his  own  ideas  after  they  had  passed  through  the 
mind  of  the  poet-philosopher,  still  it  must  be  said 
that  Mr.  Beecher  often  penetrated  with  his  clear 
analysis,  and  his  thorough  understanding  of  the 
differences  of  the  Hellenistic  from  the  American 
mind,  into  the  very  heart  of  the  Apostle's  meanings. 

Dr.  Beecher  lived  in  a  brick  house  which  Henry 
with  his  own  hand  painted  a  sort  of  a  cream  color. 
From  the  amount  of  life  going  on  within  the  house, 
we  should  say  to-day  that  it  might  well  have  been 
painted  a  fiery  red!  The  president  of  Lane  Seminary 
was  also  the  pastor  of  the  Second  Presbyterian 
Church  where  Henry  taught  a  Bible-class  of  young 
ladies,  making  the  most  careful  preparation  for  his 
work.     The  life  into  which  Beecher  now  entered  was 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  137. 


58  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

a  constant  high  tide  of  intellectual  and  moral  excite- 
ment. Forty  students  had  left  Lane  Seminary  for 
Oberlin  on  account  of  the  conservative  position  which 
they  felt  that  Dr.  Beecher  had  taken  in  regard  to  the 
the  slavery  discussion.  "  Of  the  several  gloomy 
years  that  succeeded  the  Abolition  secession,  I 
need  only  say  that  the  wonder  is  that  Lane 
did  not  perish.  It  had  few  students  and  little 
money."1  But  the  enthusiasm  in  the  Beecher  house- 
hold was  not  dependent  on  crowds  of  students. 

The  late  Professor  Evans,  of  Lane,  described  Dr. 
Beecher  as  "  alert,  fertile,  self-forgetful,  magnetic, 
full  of  electric  fire,  flashing  with  quaint  originality, 
logical  though  not  systematic,  soaring  spontaneously 
to  the  heights  of  eloquence,  kindling  into  enthusi- 
asm at  every  glimpse  of  millennial  glory."2  Such 
a  man  was  a  theological  university  in  himself.  The 
life  of  the  Beecher  household  "was  a  kind  of  moral 
Heaven,"  with  the  young  men,  Henry  and  Charles, 
singing  the  "  Creation  "  and  the  "  Messiah,"  discus- 
sing natural  and  moral  inability,  reading  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  writing  out  notes  of  the  lectures  on  Church 
history  and  finding  life  thoroughly  worth  living. 
Henry  lectured  on  temperance  and  phrenology,  and 
went  with  his  father  to  the  meetings  of  the  Presby- 
tery which  were  sometimes  stormy  with  debate.  The 
Beecher  family  were  not  rich;  indeed  they  were  in 
straightened  circumstances.  Lyman  Beecher  was 
described  as  a  man  "  before  his  age  in  his  views  and 
always  before  his  salary  in  his  expenses."     But  was 


1  Dr.  Joseph  F.  Tuttle,  "  Souvenir  of  the  Sixtieth    Anniversary 
of  the  History  of  Lane  Theological  Seminary,"  p.  42. 
*  "  Lane  Souvenir,"  pp.  24-25. 


IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY    OF    DECISION.  59 

there  ever  a  household  richer  in  intellectual  and 
moral  life  ? 

While  pursuing  his  theological  studies  Henry  Ward 
became  editor,  for  a  time,  of  the  Cincinnati  Journal, 
and  was  aided  in  this  by  his  sister,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  and  when  the  pro-slavery  riots  broke  out  in 
1836,  he  was  sworn  in  as  special  constable  to  protect 
the  negroes  and  their  friends  who  were  in  great  peril 
of  their  lives.  "  For  a  day  or  two,  we  did  not  know 
but  there  would  be  actually  war  to  the  knife,  as  was 
threatened  by  the  mob,  and  we  really  saw  Henry  de- 
part with  his  pistols,  with  daily  alarm ;  only  we  were  all 
too  full  of  patriotism  not  to  have  sent  every  brother  we 
had,  rather  than  not  have  had  the  principles  of  free- 
dom and  order  defended.  But  here  the  tide  turned. 
The  mob,  unsupported  by  a  now  frightened  commu- 
nity, slunk  into  their  dens  and  were  still."  ' 

Among  the  glimpses  given  us  of  Mr.  Beecher  at  Lane 
is  one  which  he  has  furnished  in  regard  to  an  early  ser- 
mon for  which  he  had  no  paternal  pride.  "  My  brother 
George  wished  to  be  away  a  Sunday,  and  I  was  request- 
ed to  supply  his  pulpit.  Text,  sermon,  and  all  attendant 
circumstances  are  gone  from  my  memory,  except  the 
greenness,  no  doubt  of  that."2  Another  interesting 
event  was  the  family  reunion,  a  meeting  of  the  eleven 
Beecher  children  for  the  first  time,  a  meeting  which 
filled  Dr.  Beecher  with  transports  of  joy.  "  There  were 
more  tears  than  words.  The  Doctor  attempted  to 
pray,  but  could  scarcely  speak.  His  full  heart  poured 
itself  out  in  a  flood  of  weeping.     He  could  not  go 


1  "  The  Life  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,"  p.  86. 
3  "  Anecdotes  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  p.  48. 


60  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

on;  Edward  continued,  each  one  in  his  turn  uttered 
some  sentence  of  thanksgiving.  They  then  began  at 
the  head  and  related  their  fortunes.  After  special 
prayer  all  joined  hands  and  sang  'Old  Hundred'  in 
these  words: 

'  From  all  that  dwell  below  the  skies 
Let  the  Creator's  praise  arise.'  "  ' 

It  must  also  be  mentioned  that  at  the  close  of 
Henry's  first  year  in  the  seminary  there  occurred  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Beecher,  of  whom  her  son  writes  "  that 
God  was  with  her  in  her  closing  days,  and  that  the 
light  of  His  countenance  cheered  her  pathway  to  the 
tomb." 

Parts  of  an  old  journal  kept  by  Henry  while  at 
Lane  Seminary  have  been  preserved.  In  this  we  find 
his  meditations,  many  of  them  quite  characteristic,  on 
his  own  spiritual  life,  analyses  of  Scott,  Shakespeare, 
Coleridge,  Byron,  and  Burns;  references  to  his  Bible- 
class  which  absorbed  much  of  his  thought,  and  affec- 
tionate references  to  Eunice  Bullard  with  whom  he 
kept  up  a  faithful  correspondence,  most  of  which  has 
unhappily  been  destroyed.  But  some  of  the  strongest 
influences  that  were  to  shape  his  future  life  came 
from  the  theological  controversy  in  which  his  father 
was  violently  assailed.  From  that  long  and  exceed- 
ingly bitter  strife  between  "  the  forces  of  the  Scotch- 
Irish,  Presbyterian,  Calvinistic  fatalism,"  and  "the 
advancing  rationalism  of  New  England  New  School 
theology,"  it  was  natural  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
should    come    out    with    the    strongest   antipathy   to 

1  "  Biography,     p.  143. 


IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY   OF    DECISION.  6l 

every  form  of  heresy-hunting  and  to  most  forms  of 
theological  contention.  Dr.  Wilson,  who  was  the 
leader  of  the  attacking  party,  is  described  as  a  man 
who  "  in  many  points  marvelously  resembled  General 
Jackson,  both  in  person  and  in  character,  and  he 
fought  the  battle  with  the  same  gallant,  headlong 
vigor  and  sincere,  unflinching  constancy.  His  habits 
of  thought  were  those  of  a  Western  pioneer,  accus- 
tomed from  childhood  to  battle  with  Indians  and 
wild  beasts  in  the  frontier  life  of  an  early  State.  His 
views  of  mental  philosophy,  and  of  the  modes  of 
influencing  the  human  mind,  were  like  those  of  the 
Emperor  Constantine  when  he  commanded  a  whole 
Synod  of  Bishops  to  think  alike  without  a  day's 
delay,  or  those  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  when  he 
told  the  doubting  inquirers  at  Oxford  that  the  thing 
to  be  done  was  to  sign  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and 
believe  them."  ' 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  learned  that,  however  earnest, 
unselfish,  and  consecrated  the  life  of  a  Christian  min- 
ister like  his  father  might  be,  he  was  not  safe  from 
persecution,  unless  he  conformed  to  the  literal  teach- 
ings of  what  he  deemed  an  irrational,  misleading, 
and  obsolescent  theology.  Good  men,  fired  with  a 
mistaken  zeal  for  the  Lord,  shooting  their  arrows  at 
Christian  brethren,  filled  him  with  a  lifelong  disgust. 
His  immense  activity  in  those  times  of  his  father's 
theological  trouble  was  not  given  to  assailing  others, 
but  was  expended,  with  filial  piety,  in  defense  of 
Dr.  Beecher.  "What  racing  and  chasing  along  muddy 
Western  roads,  to  obscure  towns,  each   party  hoping 


1  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  p.  534. 


62  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

that  the  length  of  the  way  and  the  depth  of  the  mud 
would  discourage  their  opponents,  keep  them  away 
and  so  give  their  own  side  the  majority!  Dr.  Beecher 
and  his  sons,  it  was  soon  found,  could  race  and 
chase  and  ride  like  born  Kentuckians,  and  that  free 
agency  on  horseback  would  go  through  mud  and  fire 
and  water  as  gallantly  as  ever  natural  inability  could. 
There  was  something  grimly  ludicrous  in  the  dismay 
with  which  Dr.  Wilson,  inured  from  his  boyhood  to 
bear-fights,  and  to  days  and  nights  spent  in  cane- 
brakes  and  dens  of  wolves,  found,  on  his  stopping  at 
an  obscure  log  hut  in  the  depth  of  the  wilderness, 
Dr.  Beecher,  with  his  sons  and  his  New  School  dele- 
gates, ahead  of  him  on  their  way  to  Synod."  ' 

When  we  think  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  with 
his  father,  ''scurrying  through  the  country,  not 
to  rescue  souls  from  danger  nor  to  forward  any 
great  moral  end,  but  to  anticipate  the  action  of 
some  Presbytery  or  to  arrange  for  some  meet- 
ing of  Synod,"  when  we  think  of  Lyman  Beecher 
compelled  to  leave  his  wife's  death-bed  to  repel  the 
attacks  of  heresy-hunters,  we  find  in  all  this  an 
important  key  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  later  attitude 
towards  churches  and  divisive  theological  creeds. 
But,  as  was  afterwards  truly  said  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  "  had  enemies,  but  no 
enmities."  He  had  no  personal  bitterness  against 
Dr.  Wilson.  At  the  Sixtieth  Anniversary  of  Lane 
Theological  Seminary,  Rev.  John  W.  Bishop,  who 
knew  him  well,  remarked:  "What  dear  Prof.  Z.  M. 
Humphrey   said    of   another    was    most  true  of   Dr. 


1  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  p.  535. 


IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY    OF    DECISION.  63 

Beecher.  No  one,  we  believe,  ever  more  devoutly 
wished  to  think  of  his  conflicts  as  impersonal,  the 
conflict  of  opinion  rather  than  of  men.  In  the  later 
and  serener  periods  of  his  life,  he  remembered  them, 
rather  as  the  mariner  on  shore  remembers  the  tossings 
of  a  storm,  the  winds  and  waves  with  which  he 
wrestled,  not  the  ^Eolus  who  unloosed  the  former  or 
the  Neptune  who  disturbed  the  latter."1 

The  three  years  at  Lane  Seminary  were  a  time  of 
intellectual  broadening,  earnest  spiritual  activity,  and 
deep  soul  unrest.  His  letters  to  Miss  Bullard  show 
that  he  was  much  troubled  with  doubts.  He  had  no 
idea  that  these  doubts  were  "  devil-born."  He  man- 
fully faced  "  the  specters  of  the  mind,"  but  as  he 
looked  out  into  the  future,  his  prospects  seemed 
uncertain.  He  was  far  from  sure  of  finding  a  home 
in  the  Presbyterian  ministry,  and,  in  the  event  of  not 
being  licensed,  he  dreamed  and  thought  of  going 
away  into  the  far  West,  building  a  log  hut  in  the 
wilderness,  hunting  up  the  scattered  settlers,  and 
preaching  to  them  the  Gospel.  "  I  will  preach  if  it 
is  in  the  byways  and  hedges."  "  I  must  preach  the 
Gospel  as  it  is  revealed  to  me.'"' 

There  came  a  time  when  his  mind  was  carried 
over  into  a  miserable,  wholesale  skepticism,  and  for 
the  greater  part  of  two  years,  he  refused  to  stir  one 
step  until  he  saw  something  sure  under  his  feet.  And 
then  came  that  manifestation  of  God  which  was 
Beecher's  second  conversion.  In  all  the  records  of 
Christian  history  there  have  been  few  spiritual  expe- 


1  Presbyterian  Quarterly,  July  1871. 
s  "  Biography,"  p.  154. 


64  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

riences  more  momentous.  We  think  of  Saul  at  the 
gate  of  Damascus,  of  Augustine  at  Milan,  of  Luther 
in  the  Erfurt  Monastery,  of  John  Bunyan's  escape 
from  the  burden  of  sin  at  Bedford,  of  John  Wesley's 
spiritual  enfranchisement  after  his  conference  with 
Peter  Bohler,  the  young  Moravian  missionary,  of 
Charles  G.  Finney's  almost  miraculous  vision  of 
Christ  in  his  lawyer's  office  in  the  New  York  village. 
The  preaching  for  fifty  years  of  the  most  influential 
man  who  ever  stood  in  an  American  pulpit  received 
its  tone  and  mighty  energy  from  that  golden  and 
transcendent  hour.  It  is  always  best  described  in  his 
own  glowing  words  :  "  I  was  a  child  of  teaching  and 
prayer;  I  was  reared  in  the  household  of  faith.  .  .  . 
And  yet,  till  after  I  was  twenty-one  years  old,  I 
groped  without  the  knowledge  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus.  I  know  not  what  the  tablets  of  eternity  have 
written  down,  but  I  think  that  when  I  stand  in  Zion 
and  before  God,  the  brightest  thing  which  I  shall 
look  back  upon  will  be  that  blessed  morning  in  May 
when  it  pleased  God  to  reveal  to  my  wandering  soul 
the  idea  that  it  was  His  nature  to  love  a  man  in  his 
sins  for  the  sake  of  helping  him  out  of  them  ;  that 
He  did  not  do  it  out  of  compliment  to  Christ,  or  to  a 
law  or  plan  of  salvation,  but  from  the  fulness  of  His 
great  heart  ;  that  He  was  a  Being  not  made  mad  by 
sin,  but  sorry  ;  that  He  was  not  furious  with  wrath 
toward  the  sinner,  but  pitied  him — in  short,  that  He 
felt  toward  me  as  my  mother  felt  toward  me,  to 
whose  eyes  my  wrong-doing  brought  tears,  who 
never  pressed  me  so  close  to  her  as  when  I  had  done 
wrong,  and  who  would  fain,  with  her  yearning  love, 
lift  me  out  of  trouble." 


IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY    OF    DECISION.  65 

And  what  follows  reminds  us  of  the  famous 
confession  by  Jonathan  Edwards  of  the  trans- 
formation which  came  to  the  visible  world  after 
his  conversion,  when  he  saw  "  a  calm,  sweet  cast 
or  appearance  of  divine  glory  in  almost  every- 
thing," "  in  the  sun,  and  moon,  and  stars  ;  in  the 
clouds  and  blue  sky,  in  the  grass,  flowers,  trees,  in 
the  water,  and  all  Nature  which  used  greatly  to  fix 
my  mind."  Mr.  Beecher  said  :  "  I  shall  never  forget 
the  feelings  with  which  I  walked  forth  that  May 
morning.  The  golden  pavements  will  never  feel  to 
my  feet  as  then  the  grass  felt  to  them  ;  and  the  sing- 
ing of  the  birds  in  the  woods — for  I  roamed  in  the 
woods — was  cacophonous  to  the  sweet  music  of  my 
thoughts  ;  and  there  were  no  forms  in  the  universe 
which  seemed  to  me  graceful  enough  to  represent  the 
Being,  a  conception  of  whose  character  had  just 
dawned  upon  my  mind.  I  felt  when  I  had  with  the 
Psalmist  called  upon  the  heavens,  the  earth,  the 
mountains,  the  streams,  the  floods,  the  birds,  the 
beasts,  and  universal  being,  to  praise  God,  that  I  had 
called  upon  nothing  that  could  praise  Him  enough 
for  the  revelation  of  such  a  nature  as  that  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Time  went  on,  and  next  came 
the  disclosure  of  the  Christ  ever  present  with  me — a 
Christ  that  never  was  far  from  me,  but  was  always 
near  me,  as  a  companion  and  friend  to  uphold  and 
sustain  me.  This  was  the  last  and  best  revelation  of 
God's  Spirit  to  my  soul.  It  is  what  I  consider  to  be 
the  culminating  work  of  God's  grace  in  man  ;  and  no 
man  is  a  Christian  until  he. has  experienced  it.  I  do 
not  mean  that  a  man  cannot  be  a  good  man  until 
then  ;  but  he  has  not  got  to  Jerusalem   till  the  gate 

5 


66  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

has  been  opened  to  him,  and  he  has  seen  the  King 
sitting  in  His  glory  with  love  to  him  individually."  ' 
This  great  experience,  which  shaped  his  whole  life 
and  teaching,  was  given  him  in  Lane  Seminary  after 
the  period  of  unrest  and  doubt  into  which  he  had 
plunged.  He  describes  the  change  which  trans- 
figured his  life  in  these  other  words:  "  It  then  pleased 
God  to  lift  upon  me  such  a  view  of  Christ,  as  one 
whose  nature  and  office  it  is  to  have  infinite  and 
exquisite  pity  upon  the  weakness  and  want  of  sin- 
ners, as  I  had  never  had  before.  I  saw  that  He  had 
compassion  upon  them  because  they  were  sinners, 
and  because  He  wanted  to  help  them  out  of  their 
sins  It  came  to  me  like  the  bursting  forth  of  spring. 
It  was  as  if  yesterday  there  was  not  a  bird  to  be  seen 
or  heard,  and  as  if  to-day  the  woods  were  full  of  sing- 
ing birds.  There  rose  up  before  me  a  view  of  Jesus 
as  the  Saviour  of  sinners — not  of  saints,  but  of  sinners 
unconverted,  before  they  were  any  better — because 
they  were  so  bad  and  needed  so  much;  and  that  view 
has  never  gone  from  me.  It  did  not  at  first  fill  the 
whole  Heaven;  it  came  as  a  rift  along  the  horizon; 
gradually,  little  by  little,  the  cloud  rolled  up.  It  was 
three  years  before  the  whole  sky  was  cleared  so  that 
I  could  see  all  around,  but  from  that  hour  I  felt  that 
God  had  a  father's  heart;  that  Christ  loved  me  in  my 
sin;  that  while  I  was  a  sinner  He  did  not  frown  upon 
me  nor  cast  me  off,  but  cared  for  me  with  unutterable 
tenderness,  and  would  help  me  out  of  sin;  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  had  everything  I  needed.  When 
that   vision  was  vouchsafed  to  me  I  felt  that  there 


1  "  Life  of  Bcecher,"  pp.  35,  36,  37. 


IN    THE    GREAT    VALLEY    OF    DECISION.  6j 

was  no  more  for  me  to  do  but  to  love,  trust,  and 
adore;  nor  has  there  ever  been  in  my  mind  a  doubt 
since  that  I  did  love,  trust,  and  adore.  There  has 
'been  an  imperfect  comprehension,  there  have  been 
grievous  sins,  there  have  been  long  defections;  but 
never  for  a  single  moment  have  I  doubted  the  power 
of  Christ's  love  to  save  me,  any  more  than  I  have 
doubted  the  existence  in  the  heavens  of  the  sun  by 
day  and  the  moon  by  night." 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  theology  suggested 
by  some  parts  of  these  personal  recitals  of  a  great 
experience,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  genuineness 
and  transcendent  importance  of  that  intellectual  and 
emotional  change  which  had  been  wrought  in  him.  He 
was  being  girded  for  a  great  mission;  he  was  being 
equipped  for  a  lifelong  battle  and  for  strange  coming 
experiences  of  sorrow  and  trial.  He  was  not  fitted  to 
wield  the  weapons  of  his  father,  but  no  man  of  his  day 
was  more  eager  and  bold  to  attack  evil  and  strengthen 
the  Kingdom  of  righteousness.  As  Mrs.  Stowe  has 
written:  "Like  the  shepherd  boy  of  old  he  saw  the 
giant  of  sin  stalking  through  the  world,  defying  the 
armies  of  the  living  God,  and  longed  to  attack  him, 
but  the  armor  in  which  he  had  been  equipped  for  the 
battle  was  no  help,  but  only  an  incumbrance."  '  But  his 
experience  changed  all  this.  "  To  present  Jesus  Christ 
personally  as  the  Friend  and  Helper  of  humanity, 
Christ  as  God  impersonate,  eternally  and  by  the  neces- 
sity of  His  nature  helpful  and  remedial  and  restorative; 
the  Friend  of  each  individual  soul,  and  thus  the  friend 
of  all  society;  this  was  the  one  thing  which   his  soul 


1  "  Men  of  our  Times,"  p.  539. 


68  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

rested  on  as  a  worthy  object  in  entering  the  ministry. 
He  afterwards  said  in  speaking  of  his  feelings  at  this 
time:  '  I  was  like  the  man  in  the  story  to  whom  a 
fairy  gave  a  purse  with  a  single  piece  of  money  in  it, 
which,  he  found  always  came  again  as  soon  as  lie  had 
spent  it.  I  thought  I  knew  at  last  one  thing  to 
preach,  I  found  it  included  everything.'  " 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


TESTING    HIS    WEAPONS. 


The  years  of  preparation  with  all  their  strange  and 
varied  experiences  are  now  ended,  and  the  Christian 
soldier  is  ready  to  enter  the  field  of  strife.  There  is 
no  gleam  of  romance  that  lights  up  that  field.  Few 
preachers  of  the  Gospel  have  known  from  the  outset 
equal  hardships.  At  the  junction  of  the  Ohio  and 
Miami  rivers  is  the  town  of  Lawrenceburg,  Indiana, 
which,  in  1837,  had  fifteen  hundred  inhabitants  and 
four  gigantic  distilleries.  And  Mr.  Beecher,  having 
been  graduated  from  Lane  Theological  Seminary  and 
licensed  by  the  Cincinnati  Presbytery,  after  the  usual 
examination  and  the  reading  of  his  trial  lecture,  was 
led,  by  the  invitation  of  an  earnest  Christian  Yankee 
woman,  to  go  to  Lawrenceburg,  and,  in  that  unattrac- 
tive field,  where  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  twenty 
members  consisted  of  nineteen  women  and  one  good- 
for-nothing  man,  to  preach  his  trial  sermon.  It  was 
in  June,  1837,  that  he  received  a  unanimous  call  to 
the  pastorate  of  this  church,  at  a  salary  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars.  The  event  was  a  momentous  one 
in  this  great  life,  and  the  thoughtful  Christian  stu- 
dent finds  it  an  event  of  deep  interest  and  wide  sig- 
nificance in  the  history  of  modern  thought  and 
modern  evangelism,  when  this  young  man  of  twenty- 


70  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

four  began  to  test  those  weapons  of  love,  which  he 
had  gathered  from  the  arsenal  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
the  shining  armor  with  which  he  had  girded  himself 
for  the  battle  of  the  Lord. 

The  year  1837  marks  a  really  remote  epoch  in  the 
annals  of  America.  The  great  men  of  that  time  were 
Jackson,  Clay,  Webster,  and  Calhoun.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln had  served  a  single  term  in  the  Illinois  Legislature, 
but  was  unknown  to  fame.  The  United  States  was 
then  a  small  nation  with  a  big  heart  and  an  unusually 
big  head.  At  the  Presidential  election  of  the  previous 
year  the  whole  vote  of  the  country  was  only  a  million 
and  a  half,  a  vote  surpassed  in  1892  by  the  combined 
suffrages  of  two  States  of  the  Union.  A  great  tide 
of  Western  immigration  was  pouring  in.  Arkansas 
was  admitted  as  a  State  in  1836  and  Michigan  in  1837. 
But  the  present  metropolis  of  the  Northwest  was  then 
a  mud-hole  at  the  foot  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  her 
first  census,  taken  that  year,  showed  a  population  of 
4,170.  The  New  World's  commercial  capital,  New 
York,  was  then  the  residence  of  less  than  three  hun- 
dred thousand  people. 

American  literature  was  scarcely  born  in  1837.  The 
anti-slavery  agitation  had  been  launched  by  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  and  Wendell  Phillips  had  enlisted  in 
the  battle  for  the  slave.  The  most  prominent  event  of 
that  year  was  the  financial  panic.  Before  Van  Buren 
had  been  two  months  in  the  chair  of  Jackson  the  mer- 
cantile failures  in  New  York  alone  amonnted  to  a  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars.  During  the  year  1837  occurred 
the  division  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  into  the  Old 
and  New  School  Assemblies.  While  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  still  an  obscure  young  man,  though  bear- 


TESTING    HIS    WEAPONS.  71 

ing  a  great  name,  making  pastoral  visits  amid  shanties 
and  shops  in  a  rough  Hoosier  river  town,  the  theo- 
logical celebrities  of  the  country  were  shining  and 
numerous.  Among  them  were  Dr.  Archibald  Alexan- 
der, who  was  then  teaching  theology  at  Priceton,  as  he 
had  been  for  twenty-five  years;  Dr.  Eliphalet  Nott, 
President  of  Union  College;  Dr.  John  McDowell,  of  the 
Central  Presbyterian  Church,  Philadelphia;  Dr. 
Gardner  Spring,  of  the  Brick  Church,  New  York;  Dr. 
George  Duffield,  who  that  year  was  leaving  New 
York  for  Detroit  where  he  became  the  beloved 
patriarch  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  Michigan; 
the  famous  Albert  Barnes,  of  the  First  Presbyterian 
Church,  Philadelphia,  whom  the  General  Assembly, 
the  previous  year,  had  acquitted  of  the  charge  of 
heresy,  the  heresy  supposed  to  be  lodged  in  his  Com- 
mentary on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  his  Ser- 
mon on  the  Way  of  Salvation.  How  the  weeds  of 
oblivion  and  indifference  have  overgrown  the  battle- 
ments on  which  fought  the  theologians  of  1836! 

Dr.  Nathaniel  Emmons,  in  1837,  had  yet  three  years 
to  live.  Dr.  Charles  Hodge  was  Professor  of  Oriental 
and  Biblical  Literature  in  Princeton.  Dr.  Edward 
Robinson  was  that  year  called  to  the  professorship 
of  Biblical  Literature  in  the  one-year-old  Union 
Theological  Seminary  in  New  York,  and  had  not  yet  t 
achieved  his  fame.  Henry  B.  Smith  was  pursuing 
his  theological  studies  at  Bangor;  Professor  Phelps 
had  that  year  been  graduated  from  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania;  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins  had  just  entered 
on  the  Presidency  of  Williams  College;  Professor 
Park  was  teaching  Sacred  Rhetoric  at  Andover;  Dr. 
Robert  W.  Patterson,  who  for  many  years  has  been 


72  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

"  the  unmitred  pope  of  the  Presbyterian  denomina- 
tion in  the  Northwest,"  was  then  a  student  at  Lane 
Seminary,  and  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs  had  two  years 
of  study  yet  to  complete  in  Amherst  College  Dr. 
Talmage  was  then  a  boy  of  five  and  Spurgeon  was  a 
child  of  three  and  Phillips  Brooks  was  not  yet  two. 

Mr.  Beecher's  little  parish  in  Lawrenceburg  had 
none  of  the  exquisite  charms  of  that  New  England 
village  life  which  he  has  pictured  so  delightfully  in 
"  Norwood."  Like  other  Western  towns  of  that  time,  it 
was  an  extemporized,  rough,  and  unadorned  collection 
of  temporary  houses.  It  was  situated  on  low  ground, 
wet  with  the  overflow  of  two  rivers.  "  The  houses 
that  were  built  in  early  days  of  poverty  were  low; 
and  generally  twice  a  year — in  the  autumn,  and  in 
the  spring  when  the  snow  melted  on  the  mountains — 
the  Ohio  came  booming  down  and  overflowed;  and 
men  were  obliged  to  emigrate."  Mr.  Beecher  often 
recalled  the  days  of  his  early  ministry,  speaking  of 
the  flock  which  he  found  and  the  flock  which  he 
gathered;  of  himself  as  sexton,  lamplighter,  church 
sweeper,  and  general  care-taker  of  the  little  structure 
wherein  he  preached,  and  which  was  soon  crowded 
to  overflowing.  He  says:  "  I  did  not  ring  the  bell 
because  there  was  none  to  ring.  I  opened  the  church 
before  prayer-meetings  and  preaching,  and  locked  it 
when  they  were  over."  "  We  were  all  poor  together. 
And  to  the  day  of  my  death  I  shall  never  forget  one 
of  those  faces  or  hear  one  of  those  names  spoken 
without  having  excited  in  my  mind  the  warmest 
remembrances."  ' 


1  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  42. 


TESTING    HIS    WEAPONS.  73 

After  a  four  years'  separation  from  his  betrothed, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  married  on  the  3d  of 
August,  1837,  to  Miss  Eunice  White  Bullard,  Rev.  Mr. 
Tracy  being  the  officiating  clergyman.  The  marriage 
ceremony  was  postponed  for  a  time  that  day  on 
account  of  a  severe  thunder-storm.  Mrs.  Beecher 
writes:  "A  little  before  four  o'clock  the  storm 
departed,  and — 

Softly  o'er  my  gladdened  heart 
Expands  the  bow  of  peace — 

for  when  Henry  took  me  into  the  parlor  where  our 
few  guests  were  waiting,  the  brightness  of  the  most 
glorious  rainbow  I  had  ever  seen  fell  upon  us  as  we 
stood  before  the  clergyman,  who  ended  his  prayer 
'  And  so  may  the  bow  of  peace  and  promise  ever  rest 
upon  these  Thy  servants,'  and  thus  on  Bullard's  Hill, 
at  West  Sutton,  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Beecher  and  I 
were  married.  Bidding  adieu  to  parents,  brothers, 
sisters,  and  friends,  we  left  the  dear  old  home  to  go 
out  into  a  world,  which  unknown  to  us  held  so  much 
for  us."  Mr.  Beecher  had  determined  to  have  his  wife 
present  at  his  ordination,  and  hence  this  journey  to 
the  East.  It  is  amusing  to  the  men  and  women  of 
this  day  to  read  that  the  most  famous  of  modern 
preachers  and  his  wife  who  was  about  to  be,  on  their 
wedding-day,  made  their  own  wedding-cake,  he  pick- 
ing over  and  stoning  the  raisins,  beating  the  eggs  and 
keeping  the  whole  family  in  good  spirits  while  the 
hurried  preparations  went  on. 

But  the  simplicities  and  homeliness  of  life  in  a 
Massachusetts  village,  a  half  century  and  more 
ago,  are  very  enchanting    compared   with  the  hard- 


74  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

ships  on  which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Beecher  were  soon 
to  enter  in  their  Western  parish.  Beginning  house- 
keeping on  a  meager  salary,  in  two  rooms  upstairs 
over  a  stable;  calling  in  the  assistance  of  the  paternal 
household  on  Walnut  Hills,  securing  a  cooking- 
stove  from  a  brother,  and  dishes  from  a  Seminary 
classmate,  and  a  variety  of  things  from  "  Father 
Beecher  and  Mrs.  Stowe";  cleaning  out  the  dirty 
rooms  with  their  own  hands,  with  indomitable  pluck 
and  the  merriest  good  nature — such  were  the  prepa- 
rations made  by  this  loving  couple  for  their  first 
home.  The  wife  eked  out  the  meager  salary  by  tak- 
ing in  sewing  and  later  by  taking  in  boarders.  Of 
his  home-life  Mrs.  Beecher  says:  "  Home  was  always 
the  place,  whether  in  early  or  later  life,  where  Mr. 
Beecher  shone  the  brightest;  where  the  noblest  and 
best  parts  of  his  character  were  the  most  thoroughly 
developed  and  best  understood.  There  he  never 
failed  to  reveal  himself  in  his  best  and  happiest 
moods."  '  Although  he  had  not  been  an  early  riser,  he 
very  soon  discovered,  after  his  marriage,  that  early  ris- 
ing would  make  the  work  of  the  household  much 
easier,  and  this  habit,  learned  at  that  time,  continued 
through  his  life.  Much  of  his  writing  and  reading  was 
done  before  breakfast. 

Mr.  Beecher  began  his  pastoral  work  with  distinct 
ideas  and  plans  which  he  set  down  in  his  journal 
The  Church  which  he  had  come  to  was  nearly  extinct, 
and  it  was  not  possible  to  one  of  his  temper  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  a  moribund  organization  if  he 
were  capable   of     infusing    into  it   any  of    his   own 


1   The  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  Nov.  1891. 


TESTING    HIS    WEAPONS.  75 

superabundant  life.  His  plans  included  thorough 
house-to-house  visitation,  and  the  securing  of  a  large 
congregation  from  the  beginning,  which  he  put  fore- 
most, and  the  inspiring  in  others  of  a  sense  of  per- 
sonal responsibility.  To  gain  a  congregation  he 
determined  to  preach  well  uniformly,  to  visit  widely, 
and  to  secure  the  love  of  the  young.  He  was  then  a 
pensioner  of  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society, 
and  it  is  very  suggestive  to  remember  that  the  funds 
given  by  patriotic  Christian  benevolence  in  the  East 
went  to  the  support  of  one  who,  in  later  time  return- 
ing to  the  East,  was  to  fire  many  hearts  with  enthu- 
siasm for  that  home-missionary  work  whose  large 
claims  and  possibilities  he,  like  his  great  father,  so 
thoroughly  understood. 

In  September,  1838,  he  applied  for  ordination.  The 
Presbyterian  Church  had  been  rent  into  two  conten- 
tious bodies.  The  Oxford  Presbytery  had  determined 
to  ordain  no  one  who  did  not  connect  himself  with  the 
Old-School  Presbyterian  Church.  Dr.  Beecher  had 
been  charged  with  heresy,  slander,  and  hypocrisy  ! 
Henry  Ward  applied  to  the  Oxford  Presbytery  for 
ordination,  going  to  the  meeting  on  horseback,  and 
nearly  losing  his  life  in  crossing  a  swollen  river. 
Deep  interest  was  aroused  by  his  application.  Here 
was  an  opportunity  of  showing  the  laxity  of  Dr. 
Lyman  Beecher's  theological  views.  But  the 
examination  to  which  Henry  Ward  was  subjected 
revealed  him  as  incorrigibly  orthodox,  and  a  unani- 
mous vote  was  passed  to  receive  him.  But  the  next 
day  the  Presbytery,  foreseeing  the  peril  of  losing  the 
candidate,  passed  two  resolutions,  one  sincerely  adher- 
ing   to  the   Old-School  General  Assembly,   and   the 


76  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

other  requiring  all  licentiates  and  candidates  under 
their  care  to  do  the  same,  or  be  no  longer  such.  "  I 
being  my  father's  son,  spurned  the  idea  of  going  over 
to  the  Old  School;  I  felt  as  big  as  forty  men;  and 
when  that  resolution  passed,  I  simply  said:  'Well, 
brethren,  I  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  back  to  my 
father's  house.'  They  were  kind  to  me;  they  seemed 
to  have  conceived   an  affection  for  the   young  man; 

.  .  they  tried  to  persuade  me  to  comply  with 
their  wish;  but  I  was  determined,  and  said,  '  I  won't.' 
I  always  had  the  knack  of  saying  that  and  sticking 
to  it!"  His  papers  were  given  back  to  him,  and  he 
returned  to  Lawrenceburg.  Recounting,  on  the  next 
Sunday,  to  his  own  people  the  proceedings  of  the 
Oxford  Presbytery,  they  voted  to  withdraw  from  it, 
and  to  become  an  independent  Presbyterian  Church. 

Those  were  the  dark  and  distressful  days  of  clash- 
ing synods  and  warring  presbyteries.  But  on  Nov.  9, 
1838,  Beecher  applied  to  the  New-School  Presbytery 
in  Cincinnati  for  ordination  over  the  Independent 
Presbyterian  Church  at  Lawrenceburg.  He  was  then 
ordained.  It  is  important  to  remember  that,  as  he 
himself  said,  his  whole  life  took  its  color  to  a  consid- 
erable degree  from  the  controversies  in  the  church 
at  that  time.  These  bitter  and  dividing  quarrels  were 
far  from  being  to  his  taste,  and  he  came  to  disregard 
organizations  and  to  cherish  a  warm  love  to  all 
denominations  and  a  willingness  to  cooperate 
with  all.  He  made  up  his  mind  with  divine  help 
never  to  engage  in  religious  contention.  "  I  remem- 
ber riding  through  the  woods  for  long,  dreary  days, 
and  I  recollect  at  one  time  coming  out  into  an  open 
place  where  the  sun  shone  down  through  the  bank  of 


TESTING    HIS    WEAPONS.  77 

the  river,  and  where  I  had  such  a  sense  of  the  love  of 
Christ,  of  the  nature  of  His  work  on  earth,  of  its 
beauty  and  grandeur,  and  such  a  sense  of  the  misera- 
bleness  of  Christian  men  quarreling  and  seeking  to 
build  up  antagonistic  churches — in  other  words  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  rose  up  before  my  mind  with 
such  supreme  loveliness  and  majesty — that  I  sat  in  my 
saddle  I  do  not  know  how  long  (many,  many  minutes, 
perhaps  half  an  hour),  and  there,  all  alone,  in  a  great 
forest  of  Indiana,  probably  twenty  miles  from  any 
house,  prayed  for  that  Kingdom,  saying  audibly  '  I 
will  never  be  a  sectary."  These  scenes  and  experiences 
in  his  rough  Western  life  he  justly  regarded  as  in  some 
respects  a  better  theological  school  than  Lane  Semi- 
nary. What  an  immense  and  wide  impression  these 
profound  early  convictions  made  not  only  on  his  life, 
but  on  the  mind  of  American  Christendom  !  More 
than  any  other  man  he  was  destined  to  show  that  the 
body  of  Christ,  His  Church,  is  mercilessly  crucified 
and  mangled  on  the  cross  of  a  fanatical,  unwise, 
distorted  devotion  to  Church  organization  and 
secondary  truths. 

Mrs.  Beecher  writes:  "  How  vividly  I  recall  that 
first  Sabbath!  How  young,  how  boyish  he  did  look! 
And  how  indignant  I  felt  when  some  of  the  higher 
classes  came  in  out  of  simple  curiosity,  to  see  the  sur- 
prised, almost  scornful  looks  that  were  interchanged! 
He  read  the  first  hymn  and  read  it  well,  as  they  had 
never  heard  their  own  ministers  (often  illiterate, 
'ineducated  men)  read  hymns.  I  watched  the  expres- 
sion change  on  their  faces.  Then  the  first  prayer! 
It  was  a  revelation  to  them;  and  when  he  began  the 
sermon  the  critical  expression  had  vanished,  and  they 


78  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

evidently  settled  themselves  to  hear  in  earnest." ' 
A  deep  impression  was  made  from  the  start  by  the 
preaching  of  the  new  minister.  He  became  uni- 
versally popular  on  account  of  his  freedom  of 
intercourse  with  all  classes.  He  sought  out  the 
neglected,  and  had  frequent  discussions  with  an 
infidel  shoemaker.  He  himself  says:  "  I  preached 
some  theology.  I  had  just  come  out  of  the  Seminary 
and  retained  some  portions  of  systematic  theology 
which  I  used  when  I  had  nothing  else;  and  as  a  man 
chops  straw  and  mixes  it  with  Indian  meal  in  order 
to  distend  the  stomach  of  the  ox  that  eats  it,  so  I 
chopped  a  little  of  the  regular  orthodox  theology 
that  I  might  sprinkle  it  with  the  meal  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  But  my  horizon  grew  larger  and  larger 
in  that  one  idea  of  Christ.3 

The  first  child  was  born  to  the  Beecher  house- 
hold while  in  Lawrenceburg.  In  1839  he  was  called 
to  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church,  of  Indianapolis, 
at  a  salary  of  six  hundred  dollars.  He  declined  the 
call,  but  it  was  renewed,  and  he  declined  it  the  second 
time.  In  his  perplexity  he  consented  at  last  to  lay 
the  matter  before  the  Synod,  and,  as  the  Synod  urged 
him  to  accept,  he  finally  agreed  to  do  so.  Thus,  as  his 
horizon  of  thought  and  experience  widened,  there  came 
a  widening  of  opportunity.  He  never  sought  promo- 
tion, he  never  hung  around  idle  "  waiting  for  a  good 
offer"  he  believed  in  entering  the  first  field  that  God 
opened  and   letting  Him  swing  wide  the  gate  to  a 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  173. 

2  Statement  of  Belief  before  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Asso- 
ation. — "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  491, 


TESTING    HIS    WEAPONS.  79 

larger  field.  He  knew  the  joy  of  the  ministry  from  the 
beginning,  and, without  expecting  to  accomplish  much, 
he  did  his  best  faithfully  from  the  start.  He  had  no 
false  humility  as  a  servant  of  Christ,  and  was  willing  to 
wear  old  clothing  which  kindly  friends  gave  him.  "  I 
could  have  said,  '  Humph!  pretty  business!  Son  of 
Lyman  Beecher,  President  of  the  Theological  Semi- 
nary, in  this  miserable  hole,  where  there  is  no  church 
and  where  there  are  no  elders  and  no  men  to  make 
them  out  of.'  .  .  .  But  I  was  delivered  from  such 
feeling.  I  remember  that  I  used  to  ride  out  in  the 
neighborhood  and  preach  to  the  destitute,  and  that 
my  predominating  feeling  was  thanksgiving  that  God 
had  permitted  me  to  preach  the  unsearchable  riches 
of  His  grace."  Mr.  Beecher  was  always  a  man  of 
largest  sympathies  and  of  unbounded  generosity,  but 
having  endured  hardships  himself  and  been  happy  in 
them,  having  known  the  trials  of  sickness  and  pov- 
erty on  the  frontier,  he  had  little  patience  with  that 
phase  of  socialism  which  demands  that  the  poor 
should  be  clothed  without  responsible  effort  on  their 
part,  and  with  that  complaining  spirit  which  is  usu- 
ally associated  with  idleness  and  want  of  character. 
Some  of  his  expressions  which  gave  great  offense  in 
his  later  years  should  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of 
his  own  experiences  and  of  his  conviction  that  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  discipline  and  trial  is  far  better  than 
indolence,  unearned  luxury,  and  undeserved  ease. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

INDIANAPOLIS.       THE    WESTERN    EVANCxELIST. 

Lawrenceburg  was  the  first  school  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
apprenticeship  in  the  divine  art  of  preaching.  He  had 
already  learned  how  to  make  people  eager  to  hear  him. 
In  his  new  field  in  Indianapolis  he  was  to  learn  how 
to  reach  people  with  the  Gospel  message,  so  that 
convictions,  heart,  and  life  should  be  changed  by  it. 
There,  too,  he  was  to  make  his  chief  contribution  to 
the  grandest  and  most  urgent  of  all  American  causes 
and  problems,  Western  evangelization.  Without  doubt 
he  was  the  greatest  of  all  home-missionary  preachers. 
Others  may  have  labored  longer  and  with  larger  im- 
mediate results:  others  may  have  been  the  founders 
of  Churches  which  have  had  a  more  imposing  and 
fruitful  history  than  even  the  noble  Church  which  he 
served  in  Indianapolis,  and  which  has  numbered 
among  its  later  pastors  several  distinguished  men. 
But  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  the  most  famous  and 
effective  pulpit  orator  ever  identified  with  the  Great 
West,  and  into  the  larger  ministry  which  he  was  des- 
tined to  accomplish  in  Brooklyn  he  carried  the  spe- 
cial training  which  probably  only  the  West  could 
have  given  him  His  memory  will  be  cherished  as  an 
illustrious  example  of  that  Christian  patriotism  which 
has  ennobled  the  annals  of  American  evangelization. 


INDIANAPOLIS.       THE    WESTERN    EVANGELIST.  8l 

This  preacher  of  unequaled  reputation  was,  for  ten 
years,  a  fellow  pioneer  with  those  fine-fibered  men  and 
women,  many  of  whom  left  cultured  homes  in  the 
East  and  endured  hardship  and  sickness  for  the  sake 
of  Christ,  amid  the  malarial  swamps,  the  half-cleared 
forests,  and  the  wide  prairies  of  the  West,  and  who 
have  since  carried  the  Christian  Church,  the  Christian 
College,  the  Christian  Sabbath,  and  the  Christian 
Home,  across  rivers  and  mountains,  to  the  Pacific 
Coast,  making  sacred  by  their  toils  and  sacrifices  the 
far-reaching  fields  of  the  American  continent.  The 
spirit  which  moved  Mr.  Beecher  has  been  equally 
strong  in  multitudes  whose  names  have  gained  no 
place  even  on  the  margin  of  the  page  of  history, 
Home-missionary  preachers  with  meagerest  salaries, 
Sunday-school  missionaries,  self-denying  presidents 
and  founders  of  colleges,  and  hundreds  of  teachers  in 
those  Christian  schools  and  seminaries  which  have 
starred  with  points  of  sacred  light  the  march  of  civil- 
ization to  the  Golden  Gate. 

Mr.  Beecher's  heart  was  deeply  stirred  and  his  im- 
agination was  roused  by  the  Christian  possibilities  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  "  the  most  magnificent  habi- 
tation "  as  De  Tocqueville  has  written,  "which  the 
Almighty  ever  prepared  for  the  abode  of  man.'"  The 
West  furnished  a  nobler  field  for  Christian  chivalry 
than  did  the  sea,  which  had  fascinated  his  dreamy 
and  yearning  boyhood.  His  knowledge  of  men,  and 
especially  of  average  men,  of  which  he  made  such 
spendid  use  in  the  pulpit,  was  largely  derived  from 
the  Hoosierized  Yankees,  in  whom  the  strength  of 
New  England  was  mingled  with  the  fervor  and 
excitability  of  the  South.  The  most  honored  and 
6 


82  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

the  most  representative  of  American  statesmen  was 
born  in  Kentucky  and  received  his  rude  training  in 
Indiana  and  Illinois.  The  excess  of  the  humorous 
habit  in  Beecher,  as  in  Lincoln,  received  its  justifica- 
tion, or  at  least  its  explanation,  from  some  of  the 
peculiarities  of  early  Western  life.  The  wit  was  a 
missionary  of  light  and  gladness  among  the  rough 
pioneers  who  lacked  nearly  all  the  devices  and 
comforts  of  civilization.  In  a  life  where  chills  and 
fever  entered  as  a  miserable  and  malign  element, 
often  for  many  months  of  the  year,  into  every  house- 
hold, the  joker,  the  man  who  could  bring  cheer  and 
stir  laughter,  was  a  welcome  angel. 

The  Western  preachers  were  very  often  distin- 
guished for  their  power  of  quick  repartee,  and  wide 
liberty  was  permitted  to  the  ministerial  contestants 
who  were  wont  to  meet  in  a  certain  store  in  Indian- 
apolis. It  is  said  that  on  one  occasion,  after  Mr.  Beecher 
had  been  thrown  over  his  horse's  head  into  the  Miami 
River,  which  he  was  endeavoring  to  cross  on  one  of 
his  missionary  tours,  the  accident,  which  was  freely 
talked  over  the  next  day,  induced  his  friend,  the 
Baptist  minister,  to  rally  him  on  the  fact  that  Beecher 
had  finally  been  immersed  and  had  become  as  good  a 
Baptist  as  anybody.  But  the  quick-witted  Beecher 
was  more  than  even  with  his  brother,  when  he  replied, 
with  good-natured  contempt,  "  My  immersion  was  a 
different  thing  from  that  of  your  converts.  You  see 
I  was  immersed  by  a  horse,  not  by  an  ass  !  " 

Mr.  Beecher  carried  the  West  with  him  to  the  East, 
and  of  all  American  preachers  he  was  the  most 
national,  we  may  say  continental,  in  his  sympathies. 
There  was  never   anything  particularly  conventional 


INDIANAPOLIS.       THE    WESTERN    EVANGELIST.  83 

about  any  of  the  Beechers,  but  we  may  ascribe  in  part 
Henry  Ward  Beecher's  familiar  ways  in  social  inter- 
course and  the  excess  of  the  unconventional  in  his 
character,  in  some  measure,  to  his  ten  years  of  West- 
ern training.  And  he  was  also  to  carry  with  him  to 
the  East  that  liberal  and  catholic  spirit,  usually  prev- 
alent among  the  Christian  denominations  of  the 
Western  States,  except  in  the  smaller  places.  And  it 
must  still  further  be  said  that  a  certain  lack  of  fastid- 
iousness and  an  occasional  lack  of  refinement  in 
speech,  a  strong  preference  for  the  coarser  word  if  it 
happened  to  be  the  more  expressive,  belonged  to 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  probably  gave  less  offense 
in  his  Western  life  than  it  did  in  later  years  when  he 
became  the  pastor  of  a  metropolitan  church. 

Mr.  Beecher  always  remembered  with  tender  affec- 
tion the  early  years  of  his  ministry,  "  in  that  glorious, 
rich,  warm,  abundant  Western  country."  His  sister, 
Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  has  written:  "  The  West, 
with  its  wide,  rich,  exuberant  spaces  of  land,  its  rolling 
prairies  garlanded  with  rainbows  of  ever-springing 
flowers,  teeming  with  abundance  of  food  for  man,  and 
opening  in  every  direction  avenues  for  youthful  enter- 
prise and  hope,  was  to  him  a  morning-land.  To  carry 
Christ's  spotless  banner  in  high  triumph  through  such 
a  land,  was  a  thing  worth  living  for,  and,  as  he  rode 
on  horseback  alone  from  day  to  day  along  the  rolling 
prairie-land,  sometimes  up  to  his  horse's  head  in  grass 
and  waving  flowers,  he  felt  himself  kindled  with  a 
sort  of  ecstasy.  The  prairies  rolled  and  blossomed 
in  his  sermons,  and  his  style  at  this  time  had  a 
tangled  luxuriance  of  poetic  imagery,  a  rush  and 
abundance    of    words,    a    sort    of    rich    and    heavy 


84  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

involution  that  resembled  the    growth  of  a  tropical 
forest."  ' 

He  preached  his  closing  sermon  to  the  people  of  Law- 
renceburg  July  28th,  1839,  and  removed  at  once  with  his 
family  to  Indianapolis,  the  capital  of  the  Hoosier  State, 
where  he  was  to  remain  through  eight  happy  and  use- 
ful years.  The  city,  which  now  has  a  population  of 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand,  had  then 
less  than  four  thousand  inhabitants,  and  it  may  be 
said  that  its  chief  attractions  were  mud  and  malaria. 
The  inhabitants  of  what  is  now  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  famous  of  Western  towns,  then  carried  on  a 
daily  battle  with  dirt  and  fever.  In  his  reminiscences 
of  the  city  he  wrote:  "  At  no  time  during  my  residence 
did  it  reach  five  thousand  (in  population).  Behold  it 
to-day  with  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  inhabi- 
tants !  The  Great  National  Road  which  at  that  time 
was  of  great  importance,  since  sunk  into  forgetful- 
ness,  ran  through  the  city  and  constituted  the  main 
street.  With  the  exception  of  two  or  three  streets 
there  were  no  ways  along  which  could  not  be  seen  the 
original  stumps  of  the  forests.  I  bumped  against 
them  too  often  in  a  buggy  not  to  be  sure  of  the  fact. 
Here  I  preached  my  first  real  sermon."  And,  writing 
of  the  church  building  which  his  congregation  entered 
soon  after  his  coming,  and  which  was  standing  in  1877 
he  said:  "  No  one  can  look  upon  that  building  as  I  do. 
A  father  goes  back  to  his  first  house,  though  it  be  but 
a  cabin,  where  his  children  were  born,  with  feelings 
that  can  never  be  transferred  to  any  other  place.  As 
I  looked  long  and  yearningly  upon  that  homely  build- 


1  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  p.  547. 


INDIANAPOLIS.       THE    WESTERN    EVANGELIST.  85 

ing  the  old  time  came  back  again.  ...  I  stood 
and  .  .  .  saw  a  procession  of  forms  going  in  and 
out,  that  the  outward  eye  will  never  see  again — Judge 
Morris,  Samuel  Merril,  Oliver  H.  Smith,  D.  V.  Cully, 
John  L.  Ketcham,  Coburn,  Fletcher,  Bates,  Bullard, 
Munsell,  Ackley,  O'Neil  and  many,  many  more  ! 
There  have  been  hours  when  there  was  not  a  hand- 
breadth  between  us  and  the  saintly  host  in  the  invisi- 
ble church!  "  ' 

The  Second  Presbyterian  Church  in  Indianapolis 
was  an  offshoot  from  the  First.  The  separation  had 
been  occasioned  by  the  prevailing  theological  dis- 
putes. Two  ministers  had  been  sought  for  and  called 
by  the  Church  before  Mr.  Beecher  was  invited. 
When  he  came  as  their  pastor  he  was  twenty-six  years 
of  age,  and  the  eight  years  which  he  spent  with  this 
people  were  of  measureless  importance  because  they 
shaped  in  large  degree  his  future  style  and  method  of 
preaching.  Some  of  his  parishioners  deemed  him  at 
that  time  the  greatest  preacher  to  whom  they  had 
ever  listened.  One  of  them  writes  an  account  of  his 
immense  industry,  his  early  rising,  the  simplicity  of 
his  prayers  at  family  worship,  the  breadth  of  his  ideas, 
his  fidelity  in  his  work  even  when,  on  account  of  the 
malarial  infliction  with  which  he  suffered,  he  could 
hardly  stand  up  and  would  fall  from  exhaustion  as  soon 
as  he  entered  the  door  of  his  own  house. 

Another  recalls  the  immediate  success  of  his  ministry, 
the  increase  of  the  congregation,  so  that  the  chapel 
where  he  first  preached  became  too  small  and  it  was 
necessary  that  a  church  be  built  for  him.     He  writes 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  206,  7,  8. 


86  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  the  attractiveness  of  the  musical  services  in  the  new 
edifice,  and  contrasts  the  preacher  in  the  Second  Pres- 
byterian Church  with  the  "  distinguished  divine,"  in 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  Circle,  the  Rev.  Phineas  D.  Gurley,  who  was  Mr. 
Lincoln's  pastor  at  Washington.  He  recalls  Mr.  Beech- 
er's  fondness  for  young  men  and  his  habit  of  entering 
into  friendly  companionship  with  his  people,  often 
taking  long  strolls  with  those  whom  he  wished  to 
capture.  "  His  church  was  crowded  every  Sabbath, 
both  by  his  own  congregation  and  by  visitors  from 
other  and  distant  churches.  Although  the  pew  sys- 
tem obtained,  at  least  one-fourth  of  the  seats  (one 
entire  section)  was  reserved  for  young  men  and 
strangers.  Among  them  may  be  named  the  judges  of 
the  Supreme,  Federal,  and  Local  Courts."  '  Although 
he  was  the  pastor  of  the  New-School  Church,  he  al- 
ways cherished  some  of  his  warmest  and  truest 
friends  among  the  families  in  the  Old  School. 

Mr.  Beecher  found  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  as  he 
had  learned  it  from  a  careful  study  of  the  Evangel- 
ists, and  as  it  had  been  burned  into  his  soul  by  the 
heat  of  a  great  experience,  was  adequate  to  the  diffi- 
cult and  multiform  work  to  which  his  life  was  hence- 
forth to  be  devoted.  The  truth  of  God's  love  in 
Christ  could  be  turned  by  him  in  every  direction. 
But  the  adaptation  of  Divine  truth  in  an  effective 
way  was  to  him  a  slow  discovery.  He  says  of  him- 
self: "  I  remember  distinctly  that  every  Sunday  night 
I  had  a  headache.  I  went  to  bed  every  Sunday  night 
with  a  vow  registered  that  I   would   buy  a   farm  and 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  186. 


INDIANAPOLIS.      THE   WESTERN    EVANGELIST.  87 

quit  the  ministry."  How  to  adapt  his  truth  to  his 
hearers  was  a  discovery  resulting  from  the  careful 
examination  of  the  teaching  and  practice  of  the 
Apostles.  He  learned  that  they  laid  "  a  foundation  first 
of  historical  truth  common  to  them  and  their  auditors; 
that  this  mass  of  familiar  truth  was  then  concentrated 
upon  the  hearers  in  the  form  of  an  intense  applica- 
tion and  appeal;  that  the  language  was  not  philos- 
ophical and  scholastic,  but  the  language  of  common 
life."  He  determined  to  try  a  similar  method,  and 
was  made  jubilant  that  the  Gospel  message  was  given 
power  to  touch  and  renew  many  souls.  He  says:  "  I 
owe  more  to  the  Book  of  Acts  and  the  writings  of  the 
Apostle  Paul  than  to  all  other  books  put  together." 
He  began  a  more  earnest  study  of  men,  and  came  to 
value  sermons  only  for  their  useful  effects.  He  had 
learned  what  must  be  his  way  of  preaching.  "  After 
the  light  dawned,  I  could  see  plainly  how  Jonathan 
Edwards's  sermons  were  so  made." 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Beecher  lacked 
careful  and  thorough  preparation  for  his  work,  or 
that  his  greatness  was  due  mainly  to  his  immense 
natural  genius.  He  once  said  :  "  No  man  can  preach 
well  except  out  of  an  abundance  of  well-wrought 
material."  During  the  years  of  his  intense  and  form- 
ative Western  experience,  he  made  a  thorough 
examination  of  the  great  English  sermonizers,  and 
also  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  whose  words  another 
eminent  preacher  of  modern  times,  Robertson  of 
Brighton,  absorbed  like  iron  into  his  blood.  Mr. 
Beecher  acknowledged  his  large  indebtedness  to 
Bishop  Butler,  to  Thomas  Sherlocke,  to  John  Howe, 
the  profound  and   contemplative  Puritan  preacher  of 


88  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

the  seventeenth  century,  and  to  the  celebrated  divine 
and  geometrician,  Isaac  Barrow,  learned  and  logical, 
if  clumsy  in  style.  And  he  read  Robert  South 
"through  and  through."  It  lends  an  additional 
interest  to  the  massive  and  pungent  sermons  of 
Clarendon's  chaplain  and  Charles  the  First's  staunch 
apologist,  to  remember  that  these  discourses  were 
pored  over  with  a  devout  and  admiring  attention  by 
our  young  Puritan  preacher  of  the  American  back- 
woods, who  had  no  sympathy  with  "  passive  obedi- 
ence "  and  "the  divine  right  of  kings,"  and  no 
inclination  to  stigmatize  John  Milton  as  "  a  blind 
adder  who  has  spit  so  much  poison  on  the  king's 
person  and  cause." 

It  was  Mr.  Beecher's  habit  through  life  never 
to  write  or  speak  except  on  themes  which  he  had 
carefully  and  widely  studied.  His  preparation 
was  usually  general  rather  than  special.  He  had 
a  large  acquaintance  with  subjects  that  were  to  be 
treated,  and  he  had  marvelous  facility  in  utilizing 
for  special  occasions,  as  in  his  great  campaign  in 
England  in  1863,  the  stored-up  results  of  long  and 
thorough  study.  Another  element  of  his  usefulness 
was  the  rich  common  sense  which  he  brought  to  the 
valuation  of  truth.  He  varied  the  emphasis  and  the 
kind  of  his  religious  teaching  according  to  the  cir- 
cumstances and  conditions  which  confronted  him. 
In  the  West  with  its  heterogeneous  population  and 
loose  ideas  of  law  and  excess  of  individualism,  he 
insisted  upon  authority,  obedience,  the  usefulness  and 
necessity  of  churches  and  forms  and  Sabbath  days. 
But,  as  he  says  when  he  was  transferred  to  the  East 
and    found    society    hard-ribbed    and   vigorous   and 


INDIANAPOLIS.       THE    WESTERN    EVANGELIST.  89 

tyrannical,  he  "  fought  society,  and  tried  to  get  indi- 
vidual men  to  be  free,  independent,  and  large." 

After  the  new  light  which  came  to  him  from  the 
study  of  Apostolic  methods,  revivals  soon  began  to 
bless  his  Church,  and  three  of  these  "  times  of 
refreshing"  from  on  high,  were  exceedingly  fruitful. 
Nearly  one  hundred  were  brought  into  his  Church  in 
1842.  He  remembered  these  periods  with  a  trembling 
and  tearful  enthusiasm  of  joy.  "Talk  of  a  young 
mother's  feelings  over  her  first  babe,"  he  wrote,  "  what 
is  that  compared  with  the  solemnity,  the  enthusiasm, 
the  impetuosity  of  gratitude,  of  humility,  of  singing 
gladness, with  which  a  young  pastor  greets  the  incom- 
ing of  his  first  revival?  He  stands  upon  the  shore  to 
see  the  tide  come  in.  It  is  the  movement  of  the 
infinite,  ethereal  tide  !  It  is  from  the  other  world  !  " 
Large  prosperity  attended  his  ministry  in  Indianapolis, 
the  Church  increasing  eight-fold.  He  was  indefatig- 
able in  his  work,  preaching  during  one  year  seventy 
nights  in  succession.  His  labors  extended  to  many 
of  the  chief  towns  of  the  State.  Persons  who  were 
present  during  the  famous  Brooklyn  Council  of  1876, 
will  recall  with  what  tenderness,  in  his  great  sermon 
on  Sunday  morning,  he  referred  to  those  whom  he 
had  led  to  Christ  in  his  wide  Western  ministry,  and 
who,  he  believed,  were  to  give  him  a  choral  welcome 
at  the  gate  of  Heaven. 

With  peculiar  interest  he  remembered  the  revival 
at  Terre  Haute.  That  highland  of  the  Wabash, 
once  the  dividing  line  between  Canada  and  Louis- 
iana, was  to  him  a  region  not  of  geographical 
but  of  deepest  spiritual  significance.  One  of 
his  characteristic  and   morbid  experiences  was  con- 


90  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

nected  with  this  revival.  He  had  been  sent  for 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Jewett  to  come  and  assist  him  at 
Terre  Haute.  The  call  made  him  helpless  and 
wretched,  and  his  two  days'  lonely  ride  on  horseback 
through  the  beech  forests  was  continued  in  a  state  of 
mental  unrest  and  bewilderment.  But  he  records  that 
so  soon  as  he  was  confronted  with  the  duty  of  the 
hour,  the  cloud  was  lifted  and  the  morbid  drooping 
and  shrinking  were  gone.  After  three  happy  weeks, 
crowned  with  great  success,  he  found  it  hard  to  go 
back  to  the  common  routine  of  Church  life,  and,  as 
he  returned  to  Indianapolis,  he  passed  through  a 
season  of  wild,  tumultuous  emotion  which  ended  at 
last  in  peace  and  assurance,  leading  to  a  summer  of 
fruitful  toil  among  his  own  people.  During  his  ear- 
lier years  Mr.  Beecher,  as  already  intimated,  seemed 
to  have  little  confidence  in  himself.  "  For  the  first 
three  years  of  my  ministry,"  he  once  said  "  I  did  not 
make  a  single  sinner  wink."  This  lack  of  self-confi- 
dence and  lack  of  a  certain  kind  of  success  occasioned 
a  degree  of  morbidness  so  intense  that  he  frequently 
requested  his  wife  not  to  attend  his  meetings.  But 
the  miserable  self-distrust  usually  disappeared  when 
he  rose  to  speak,  and  he  generally  returned  home 
from  his  work  in  a  joyful  frame  of  mind. 

Living  in  the  saddle,  riding  "  from  camp-meeting 
to  camp-meeting  and  from  log  hut  to  log  hut,"  almost 
the  only  book  this  revivalist  found  time  to  study  was 
the  Bible,  and  he  made  a  renewed  and  careful  exam- 
ination of  the  Gospels,  with  great  toil  compiling 
analyses  of  their  teachings.  They  became  incorpor- 
ated into  himself.  His  younger  brother  Charles,  who 
afterwards  gained  high  repute  as  a  preacher,  had  aban- 


INDIANAPOLIS.      THE   WESTERN    EVANGELIST.  91 

doned  the  ministry  on  account  of  his  restless  mental 
questionings.  He  lived  near  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
in  Indianapolis,  and  it  is  recorded  that  the  experience 
of  a  revival  and  the  studies  that  came  from  teaching 
a  Bible-class  led  him  to  reexamine  the  life  of  the  Son 
of  God,  and  were  the  means  of  preparing  him  to 
reenter  the  Gospel  ministry.  By  this  large  and  con- 
stant attention  to  the  Christian  Scriptures  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  was  gaining  not  only  a  new  conception 
of  the  nature  of  God  but  a  new  repugnance  to  "  meta- 
physical doctrines."  The  truth  of  personal  experience, 
of  immediate  practical  helpfulness,  was  the  truth  most 
dear  to  one  who  became  intimate  with  every  family 
in  his  Church.  This  sort  of  friendly  intimacy  was 
not  a  difficult  achievement  in  a  Western  town,  where 
the  people  made  the  pastor  one  of  their  own  house- 
hold and  furnished  him  food  and  clothing  to  eke  out 
his  salary.  He  was  a  playfellow  with  the  young,  and 
a  teacher  of  unusually  stimulating  power  to  a  class  of 
girls,  whom  he  directed  in  their  reading,  attracting 
them  toward  the  poetry  of  Milton,  and  warning  them 
against  Bulwer  and  the  French  novelists. 


CHAPTER    X. 

A    SICK    HOUSEHOLD.       A    STRONG    PULPIT. 

His  fame  as  a  preacher  began  to  extend  beyond  the 
bounds  of  his  parish.  The  members  of  the  State  Leg- 
islature were  attendants  in  large  numbers  on  his  min- 
istry, and  the  men  from  the  great  Eastern  cities  were 
drawn  to  take  notice  of  his  remarkable  pulpit  power. 
While  attending  a  meeting  of  the  Presbyterian  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  in  Buffalo,  he  made  a  fervid  address  on 
the  subject  of  "  Slavery,"  of  such  originality  and  vigor 
that  it  attracted  wide  attention.  He  was  a  trustee  of 
that  excellent  institution,  which  has  trained  many  of 
the  best  Western  preachers,  Wabash  College  at  Craw- 
fordsville,  Indiana,  and  his  personal  knowledge  of  the 
needs  of  Christian  education  in  the  newer  States  made 
him  an  enthusiastic  and  useful  friend  of  small  Western 
colleges. 

The  amount  and  quality  of  his  work  at  this  time 
became  all  the  more  remarkable  when  we  remember 
the  almost  continual  sickness  which  afflicted  members 
of  his  family.  He  had  been  told  that  Indianapolis, 
unlike  Lawrenceburg,  was  free  from  that  frightful 
plague  of  Western  frontier  life,  chills  and  fever. 
Being  anxious  for  his  wife,  whose  health  was  not  at 
that  time  strong,  and  for  his  little  daughter,  he  was 


A    SICK    HOUSEHOLD.       A    STRONG    PULPIT.  93 

deeply  stirred  on  discovering,  after  arriving  at  Indian- 
apolis, that  the  inhabitants  of  that  place,  or  at  least 
some  of  them,  had  grossly  misrepresented  the  salu- 
brity of  their  climate.  Within  a  short  time  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Beecher  were  both  taken  with  the  prevailing  dis- 
temper. Severe  sickness  followed,  and  although  he 
recovered  his  former  strength  the  old  trouble  in  a 
milder  form  frequently  returned.  * 

The  salary  of  six  hundred  dollars  did  not  relieve 
the  Beecher  family  from  domestic  anxiety.  They 
moved  from  place  to  place  in  the  town  till  they 
made  their  home  at  last  in  a  one-story  house 
which  Mr.  Beecher  was  to  purchase  gradually,  pay- 
ing for  it  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
Though  the  bedrooms  were  small  and  the  kitchen 
small,  they  lived  in  this  house  seven  years  and 
deemed  it  the  happiest  home  they  ever  knew.  Mr. 
Beecher  vibrated  incessantly  between  kitchen  and 
study.  Mrs.  Beecher,  frequently  sick,  was  kept  much 
of  the  time  from  church.  Her  time  was  divided 
between  chills  and  household  work.  With  his  study- 
table  and  the  cooking-table  separated  only  by  a  thin 
partition,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Mr.  Beecher  became 
very  well  known  to  his  own  family.  There  is  a  pic- 
turesque rudeness  and  simplicity  about  the  scenes  of 
his  life  in  Indianapolis  that  have  been  painted  for  us. 
We  see  him  helping  in  all  family  offices,  though  con- 
tinually tempted  to  postpone  the  washing  of  dishes; 
we  see  him  wading  to  church  "  ankle-deep  in 
mud"  and  preaching  with  his  pantaloons  stuffed  into 
his  boot-tops;  we  see  him  painting  his  own  house  as 


1  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  December,  1891. 


94  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

he  painted  his  father's  on  Walnut  Hills,  and  devel- 
oping a  degree  of  self-helpfulness  that  must  appear 
to  many  quite  extraordinary. 

During  these  years  in  Indianapolis  he  passed 
through  some  of  those  sorrows  which  helped  him  in 
after-times  to  abound  richly  in  sympathy  with  those 
burdened  with  grief.  There  was  the  accidental  shoot- 
ing of  his  brother  George,  followed  in  1846  by  the 
death  of  George,  his  third  son.  Few  incidents  come 
home  to  the  universal  heart  more  touchingly  than  that 
which  Mr.  Beecher  described  in  speaking  of  the  burial 
of  this  little  child — how  he  waded  through  the  snow, 
carrying  the  little  coffin  in  his  arms,  and  seeing  win- 
ter down  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  grave.  "  If  I 
should  live  a  thousand  years,"  he  said,  "  I  could  not 
help  shivering  every  time  I  thought  of  it."  A  friend 
recalls  a  sermon  of  Mr.  Beecher's  and  words  spoken 
to  this  effect:  "  People  sometimes  ask  me  how  I  am 
able  to  sympathize  with  parents  in  their  sorrows. 
Have  I  not  buried  my  own  heart  again  and  again  in 
the  grave  ?  " 

While  in  Indianapolis,  Mr.  Beecher  found  relief 
from  domestic  annoyances  and  afflictions  and  from 
the  excessive  toils  of  "his  preaching  life,  and  he  found 
also  unspeakable  delight,  as  well  as  rich  materials  for 
a  bewildering  variety  of  illustrations  for  his  future 
sermons,  in  a  renewed  and  sympathetic  study  of  flow- 
ers. He  utilized  his  fragments  of  spare  time  and 
gained  a  mental  refreshment  which  was  greatly 
needed  after  eighteen  consecutive  months  of  daily 
preaching,  by  the  continued  reading  of  Loudon's 
Encyclopaedic  works  on  Horticulture,  Agriculture,  and 
Architecture.     He  believed   that  he  had   read  every 


A   SICK    HOUSEHOLD.       A    STRONG    PULPIT.  95 

line  of  these  great  volumes  which  he  found  immensely 
fascinating.  Gray's  "Structural  Botany  "  and  Lind- 
ley's  "  Horticulture  "  were  added,  and  later,  the  Lon- 
don Gardener  s  Chronicle.  "  Many  hundred  times  "  he 
says,  "  have  we  lain  awake  for  hours,  unable  to 
throw  off  the  excitement  of  preaching,  and  beguil- 
ing the  time  with  imaginary  visits  to  the  Chis- 
wick  Gardens,  to  the  more  than  Oriental  magnifi- 
cence of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  grounds  at  Chats- 
worth.  We  have  had  long  discussions  at  Indianapolis, 
with  Van  Mons  about  pears,  with  Vibert  about  roses, 
with  Thompson  and  Knight  of  fruits  and  theories  of 
vegetable  life,  and  with  Loudon  about  everything 
under  the  heavens  in  the  horticultural  world." 

He  was  more  than  a  closet  botanist  and  gardener. 
Believing  thoroughly  in  manual  work,  he  tilled  his 
own  garden,  grew  his  own  flowers,  and  often,  at  the 
dawn  of  day,  took  his  own  vegetables  to  market.  He 
also  carried  off  first  prizes  at  an  exhibition  of  the 
Indiana  Horticultural  Society.  Though  he  had  done 
some  newspaper  writing  at  Cincinnati,  in  Indianapo- 
lis he  "  first  joined  the  editorial  fraternity  and  edited 
the  Farmer  and  Gardener."  In  the  columns  of  that 
journal  he  gave  the  Western  farmers  much  good 
advice  mixed  with  much  rare  humor.  Thus  uncon- 
sciously he  was  preparing  himself  for  the  battle  of  the 
giants  which  was  to  follow  in  those  days  when,  as  the 
editor  of  the  New  York  Independent,  he  easily  took  a 
front  rank  among  the  journalists  of  his  time.  Mr. 
Beecher  was  known  as  a  mild  Whig  while  in  Indian- 
apolis. The  anti-slavery  fight  was  soon  to  make  him 
an  Abolitionist,  though  not  training  with  the  Garrison 
party. 


g6  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Texas  had  been  annexed,  and  the  wicked  Mexican 
War,  undertaken  for  the  extension  of  slavery,  was  in 
progress.  The  mighty  contestants  were  making 
ready  for  the  great  Congressional  struggles  of  1850, 
and  for  the  more  terrible  strifes  of  armies  that  lay 
beyond.  Slavery  had  become  a  burning  question, 
and  though  the  hostility  to  Abolitionism  was  proba- 
bly hotter  in  the  Middle  and  Eastern  States  than  in 
the  West,  even  in  Indianapolis,  the  subject  of  slavery 
was  a  dividing  one.  Men  were  red-hot  with  regard 
to  it,  and  Mr.  Beecher  reports  that  one  of  his  elders 
said  :  "If  an  Abolitionist  comes  here,  I  will  head  a 
mob  and  put  him  down."  Those  were  the  days  of 
excessive  timidity.  The  chief  men  of  the  North 
hated  Abolitionism  far  more  than  they  hated  the 
driver's  whip  or  the  auction-block.  Missionary  societies 
were  quite  as  timid  as  capitalists,  and  tore  anti-slavery 
pages  out  of  their  publications.  It  is  a  notable  evidence 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  practical  wisdom  that  he  was  able 
to  speak  on  this  subject  with  no  uncertain  sound,  and 
yet  ultimately  to  retain  in  large  measure  his  strong 
hold  on  his  people. 

Toward  the  close  of  his  ministry  in  the  West,  his 
Presbytery  voted  to  request  the  Presbyterian  clergy- 
men to  preach  at  least  one  sermon  during  the  year  on 
the  subject  of  slavery.  Mr.  Beecher  thought  it  fit  to 
preach  three  sermons  on  this  topic.  In  the  first  of  these 
he  spoke  of  ancient  slavery,  especially  among  the 
Hebrews,  in  the  second  he  presented  the  doctrine 
and  practice  of  the  New  Testament  in  respect  to 
slavery,  and   in    the    final    sermon    he   discussed   the 


A   SICK    HOUSEHOLD.       A    STRONG    PULPIT.  97 

moral  aspects  of  slavery,  attacking  the  gigantic  evil 
with  characteristic  earnestness.  As  he  doubtless 
expected,  his  words  aroused  the  wrath  of  the  pro- 
slavery  church-members  and  the  excited  fears  of  the 
timid,  some  of  whom  went  so  far  as  to  seek  for  letters 
of  dismissal  from  the  Church.  The  town  was  full 
of  excitement.  Judge  McLean,  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  was  one  among  Mr.  Beecher's  many 
listeners,  and  he  admired  the  manly  boldness  of  the 
outspoken  preacher.  When  he  remarked  to  an  excited 
group  of  Hoosiers  :  "If  every  minister  in  the  United 
States  would  be  as  faithful  it  would  be  a  great 
advance  in  settling  this  question,"  he  did  much  to 
turn  the  tide  of  feeling.  With  further  deliberation 
men  began  to  see  things  differently,  and  Mr.  Beecher 
found  himself  able  in  his  youth,  as  so  often  in  his 
manhood,  to  note  the  tide  turning  his  way,  and  as 
usual  his  temporary  disrepute  was  followed  by  higher 
admiration  and  esteem. 

The  fearless  preacher  had  many  evils  to  attack 
besides  slavery,  and  he  had  no  hesitation  in  rebuking 
the  prevailing  sins.  After  he  had  denounced  from 
the  pulpit  an  act  of  brutality,  committed  by  a  noto- 
rious man  of  the  city,  his  people  feared  lest  he  should 
suffer  bodily  injury  from  the  irate  offender.  And 
indeed  the  next  morning  the  angry  sinner  encountered 
him,  as  he  passed  the  hotel,  and,  pistol  in  hand, 
demanded  if  he  made  those  remarks,  and  if  they  were 
directed  against  him.  Mr.  Beecher  replied  affirma- 
tively, when  the  ruffian  said,  with  an  oath:  "Take  it 
back  right  here  or  I'll  shoot  you  on  the  spot."  "Shoot 
away,"  was  the  calm  reply,  as  Mr.  Beecher  walked  on. 
The    bully   followed  him    for   a  few  steps  and  then 


98  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

slunk  back  to  the  hotel.  On  another  occasion  at  a 
meeting  for  the  enforcement  of  the  law  against  the 
gamblers  and  liquor-sellers  who  were  doing  much  to 
ruin  many  of  his  young  men,  Mr.  Beecher  denounced 
one  of  the  criminals,  who  was  present,  to  his  very 
face  The  ruffian  threatened  to  whip  him  at  the  next 
encounter.  Meeting  him  soon  after  Mr.  Beecher 
bowed  and  said  "  Good  morning,  Mr.  Bishop,"  and 
passed  on.  A  year  or  two  later  this  man  opened  his 
whole  heart  to  the  brave  pastor  and  rendered  him 
personal  service. 

The  temptations  at  the  State  capital  were  so  terri- 
ble and  numerous  that  the  young  preacher  became 
distressed  for  the  souls  of  imperiled  youth.  All  the 
vices  flourished  in  rank  luxuriance,  and  Mr.  Beecher 
determined  to  meet  these  evils  with  a  series  of 
addresses  to  young  men.  First  he  made  a  careful 
study  of  the  arts  and  devices  by  which  the  young  are 
led  to  moral  ruin.  The  result  was  a  series  of  lectures 
to  young  men,  afterwards  published,  which  for  bold- 
ness, insight,  and  tropical  eloquence  have  probably 
never  been  equaled.  Friends  of  Lyman  Beecher 
recalled  the  spirit  which  blazed  forth  in  his  six  ser- 
mons against  intemperance.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  in 
every  discourse  "  seemed  to  see  sparks  as  from  the 
red-hot  iron  on  the  old  anvil,  and  to  hear  the  old 
Boanerges  thunder  with  a  youthful  voice."  The 
immediate  effect  of  these  lectures,  however  strong  and 
salutary,  was  small  compared  with  the  wider  effects 
produced  by  their  publication  and  large  circulation, 
both  in  England  and  America.  Mr.  Beecher  was  slow 
in  heeding  the  urgent  requests  of  his  friends  to  revise 
and  print  these  discourses.     When  he  compared  them 


A   SICK    HOUSEHOLD.      A   STRONG    PULPIT.  99 

with  the  sermons  of  Dr.  Isaac  Barrow,  he  was  so 
impressed  with  the  inferiority  of  his  own  work  that 
he  took  up  his  manuscript  and  "  fired  it  across  the 
room  and  under  the  book-case,"  where  it  lay 
untouched  for  awhile.  Mr.  Beecher  rarely  "had  the 
patience  to  revise  "  which  Mr.  Spurgeon  utilized  for 
many  years  with  such  advantage  to  the  whole  English- 
speaking  world. 

It  is  fortunate  that  Mr.  Beecher's  addresses  to 
young  men,  so  fresh  and  vital,  so  full  of  power 
and  splendor,  of  humor,  indignation,  originality 
of  thought,  and  careful  observation,  were  not  left 
under  the  book-case.  As  we  re-read  the  volume 
to-day  it  appears  as  true  to  life  as  when  the  words 
were  first  spoken.  Its  reality  makes  to  a  large  degree 
its  power.  He  discusses  idleness  in  all  its  forms,  and, 
with  no  commonplaceness  of  thought  or  expression, 
he  portrays  the  perils  and  punishments  of  indolence. 
He  speaks  of  dishonesty  and  tells  of  its  causes.  He 
utters  his  solemn  warnings  against  the  thought  that 
riches  necessarily  confer  happiness;  against  a  wicked 
haste  to  be  rich;  against  covetousness;  against  the 
canker  of  selfishness;  against  covert  dishonesty  and 
against  violent  extortion. 

What  a  picture  he  has  given  of  the  Behemoth 
of  Rapacity !  "  Men  there  are,  who,  without  a 
pang  or  gleam  of  remorse,  will  coolly  wait  for 
a  character  to  rot,  and  health  to  sink,  and  means 
to  melt,  that  they  may  suck  up  the  last  drop 
of  the  victim's  blood.  Our  streets  are  full  of 
reeling  wretches  whose  bodies  and  manhood  and 
souls  have  been  crushed  and  put  to  the  press  that 
monsters  might  wring  out  of  them  a  wine  for  their 


IOO  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

infernal  thirst.  The  agony  of  midnight  massacre,  the 
frenzy  of  the  ship's  dungeon,  the  living  death  of  the 
middle  passage,  the  wails  of  separation,  and  the  dis- 
mal torpor  of  hopeless  servitude — are  these  found 
only  in  the  piracy  of  the  slave-trade  ?  They  are  all 
among  us.  Worse  assassinations!  Worse  dragging 
to  a  prison  ship  !  Worse  groans  ringing  from  the 
fetid  hold!  Worse  separations  of  families!  Worse 
bondage  of  intemperate  men,  enslaved  by  that  most 
inexorable  of  all  task-masters,  sensual  habit!" 

Then  who  can  fail  to  remember  the  pictures  in 
Beecher's  Portrait  Gallery,  the  Wit,  the  Humorist,  the 
Cynic,  the  Libertine,  the  Politician,  the  Demagogue, 
the  Party  Man  ?  The  Gambler's  character  is  depicted 
with  the  terrible  power  and  realism  of  Hogarth,  and 
with  more  than  his  splendor.  The  evils  of  gambling 
in  ruining  the  mind,  in  destroying  domestic  affection, 
in  its  affiliation  with  other  vices,  in  its  provocation  of 
thirst  and  its  inevitable  connection  with  dishonesty 
have  never  been  set  forth  with  more  vividness  nor  has 
any  other  homilist  pointed  out  more  clearly  the  peril 
of  the  first  imperceptible  steps  to  wickedness. 

"  Oh  ye  who  have  thought  the  way  to  hell  was  bleak 
and  frozen  as  Norway,  parched  and  barren  as  Sahara, 
strewed  like  Golgotha  with  bones  and  skulls,  reeking 
with  stench  like  the  vale  of  Gehenna, — witness  your 
mistake!  The  way  to  hell  is  gorgeous!  It  is  a  high- 
way, cast  up;  no  lion  is  there,  no  ominous  bird  to 
hoot  a  warning,  no  echoings  of  the  wailing  pit,  no 
lurid  gleams  of  distant  fires,  or  moaning  sounds  of 
hidden  woe!  Paradise  is  imitated  to  build  you  away 
to  death;  the  flowers  of  Heaven  are  stolen  and 
poisoned;  the  sweet  plant  of  knowledge  is  here;  the 


A   SICK    HOUSEHOLD.      A    STRONG    PULPIT.  IOI 

pure  white  flower  of  religion;  seeming  virtue  and  the 
charming  tints  of  innocence  are  scattered  all  along 
like  native  herbage.  The  enchanted  victim  travels 
on.  Standing  far  behind,  and  from  a  silver  trumpet, 
a  Heavenly  messenger  sends  down  the  wind  a  solemn 
warning:  THERE  IS  A  WAY  WHICH  SEEMETH 
RIGHT  TO  MAN  BUT  THE  END  THEREOF 
IS  DEATH.  And  again,  with  louder  blast:  THE 
WISE  MAN  FORESEETH  THE  EVIL;  FOOLS 
PASS  ON  AND  ARE  PUNISHED.  Startled  for  a 
moment,  the  victim  pauses;  gazes  round  upon  the 
flowered  scene,  and  whispers  '  Is  it  not  harmless  ? ' — 
'  Harmless,'  responds  a  serpent  from  the  grass  ! — 
'  Harmless'  echoes  the  sighing  winds;  'Harmless' 
reecho  a  hundred  airy  tongues.  If  now  a  gale  from 
Heaven  might  only  sweep  the  clouds  away  through 
which  the  victim  gazes;  Oh  !  if  God  would  break 
that  potent  power  which  chains  the  blasts  of  hell,  and 
let  the  sulphur  scent  roll  up  the  vale,  how  would  the 
vision  change!  The  road  becomes  a  track  of  dead 
men's  bones.  The  heavens  a  lowering  storm.  The 
balmy  breezes,  distant  wailing — and  all  those  balsam- 
shrubs  that  lied  to  the  senses,  sweat  drops  of  blood 
upon  their  poison-boughs." 

"  Ye  who  are  meddling  with  the  edges  of  vice,  ye 
are  on  this  road  ! — and  utterly  duped  by  its  enchant- 
ments !  Your  eye  has  already  lost  its  honest  glance, 
your  taste  has  lost  its  purity,  your  heart  throbs  with 
poison  !  The  leprosy  is  all  over  you,  its  blotches  and 
eruptions  cover  you.  Your  feet  stand  on  slippery 
places,  whence  in  due  time  they  shall  slide  if  you  refuse 
the  warning  which  I  raise.  They  shall  slide  from  that 
Heaven   never  to  be  visited  by  a  gambler;  slide  down 


102  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

to  that  fiery  abyss  below  you  out  of  which  none  ever 
come.  Then,  when  the  last  card  is  cast,  and  the  game 
over,  and  you  lost ;  then,  when  the  echo  of  your  fall 
shall  ring  through  hell, — in  malignant  triumph,  shall 
the  Arch-Gambler,  who  cunningly  played  for  your 
soul,  have  his  prey  !  Too  late  you  shall  have  looked 
back  upon  life  as  a  Mighty  Game,  in  which  you  were 
the  stake,  and  Satan  the  winner." 

We  may  search  in  vain  in  literature  for  any  equally 
lurid  portrayal  of  the  folly  of  so-called  harmless  sins. 
There  are  pages  in  these  lectures  that  remind  one  of  the 
most  sensational  and  terrible  scores  of  Berlioz  and  Wag- 
ner. Some  of  these  are  found  in  the  chapter  on  "  The 
Strange  Woman  "and  others  in  the  final  lecture  on 
"  Popular  Amusements,"  which  closes  with  the  famous 
and  terrible  apostrophe  to  the  corrupter  of  youth. 
"  I  would  not  take  thy  death  for  all  the  pleasure  of 
thy  guilty  life  a  thousandfold.  Thou  shalt  draw  near 
to  the  shadow  of  death.  To  the  Christian,  these 
shades  are  the  golden  haze  which  Heaven's  light 
makes  when  it  meets  the  earth  and  mingles  with  its 
shadows.  But  to  thee,  these  shall  be  shadows  full  of 
phantom-shapes.  Images  of  terror  in  the  Future 
shall  dimly  rise  and  beckon  ;  the  ghastly  deeds  of  the 
Past  shall  stretch  out  their  skinny  hands  to  push  thee 
forward  !  Thou  shalt  not  die  unattended.  Despair 
shall  mock  thee.  Agony  shall  tender  to  thy  parched 
lips  her  fiery  cup.  Remorse  shall  feel  for  thy  heart, 
and  rend  it  open.  Good  men  shall  breathe  freer  at 
thy  death,  and  utter  thanksgiving  when  thou  art 
gone.  Men  shall  place  thy  gravestone  as  a  monu- 
ment and  testimony  that  a  plague  is  stayed  ;  no  tear 
shall    wet    it,    no    mourners    linger   there !     And,    as 


A   SICK    HOUSEHOLD.       A    STRONG    PULPIT.  103 

borne  on  the  blast,  thy  guilty  spirit  whistles  through 
the  gate  of  hell,  the  hideous  shrieks  of  those  whom 
thy  hand  hath  destroyed,  shall  pierce  thee — hell's 
first  welcome.  In  the  bosom  of  that  everlasting 
storm  which  rains  perpetual  misery  in  hell,  shalt  thou, 
Corrupter  of  Youth!  be  for  ever  hidden  from  our 
view  :  And  may  God  wipe  out  the  very  thoughts  of 
you  from  our  memory."  ' 

His  "Lectures  to  Young  Men"  is  said  to  have  been 
the  first  book  by  an  Indiana  author,  to  be  honored  by 
a  republication  in  Great  Britain.  Mr.  Beecher's  voice 
was  to  be  heard  again  in  England,  and,  with  matured 
powers,  he  was  to  champion  the  cause  of  American 
liberty  and  nationality.  The  change  in  the  style  of 
speech  between  those  florid  and  over-languaged 
lectures  in  the  Hoosier  city  and  the  keen,  swift, 
straightforward  sentences  which  he  shot,  like  arrows, 
at  the  mob  in  Liverpool,  is  a  most  interesting  study 
aud  a  remarkable  illustration,  not  only  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  intellectual  growth,  but  of  that  consummate 
genius  which  speaks  the  right  word  in  the  right  way- 


1  "  Lectures  to  Young  Men,"  p.  251. 


CHAPTER  XL 

CALL  TO  BROOKLYN.   EARLY  REVIVALS. 

Mr.  Beecher's  ten  years  of  Western  life  were  his 
rough,  varied,  and  wholesome  schooling  for  the  much 
larger  opportunities  soon  to  open  before  him.  His 
great  nature  had  expanded  and  ripened  in  the  intense 
and  many-sided  exertions  of  that  interesting  expe- 
rience. His  heart  was  in  the  West,  but  Mrs.  Beecher 
had  been  sick  almost  continually  and  did  not  take 
kindly  to  Hoosier  life  as  it  then  was.  The  beautiful 
city  of  Indianapolis,  as  it  now  is,  was  not  the  city 
one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand,  was  not  the  city 
of  chills  and  fevers  with  which  she  was  familiar.  Her 
health  had  been  so  seriously  impaired  that  Mr. 
Beecher  was  finally  persuaded,  in  1847,  to  accept  a  call 
extended  by  the  Plymouth  Congregational  Church 
in  Brooklyn,  New  York.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  was 
strongly  and  almost  sternly  opposed  to  his  son's  going 
East.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  believed  that  if  God  had 
work  for  him  in  a  different  sphere  of  activity  He  would 
make  it  as  plain  to  him  as  He  did  to  Abraham.  He 
had  no  thought  or  purpose  of  seeking  a  new  field  of 
work,  but  he  wrote  that  he  had  an  immovable  plan  in 
regard  to  the  objects  which  he  should  pursue. 

"  So  help  me  God,  I  do  not  mean  to  be  a. party  man, 
nor  to  head  nor  follow  any  partisan  effort;  I  desire  to 


CALL    TO    BROOKLYN.       EARLY    REVIVALS.  105 

aid  in  a  development  of  truth  and  in  the  production  of 
goodness  by  it.  I  do  not  care  in  whose  hands  truth  may 
be  found,  or  in  what  communion;  I  will  thankfully 
take  it  of  any.  Nor  do  I  feel  bound  in  any  sort  to 
look  upon  untruth  or  mistake  with  favor  because  it 
lies  within  the  sphere  of  any  Church  to  which  I  may 
be  attached.  I  do  not  have  that  mawkish  charity 
which  seems  to  arise  from  regarding  all  tenets  as 
pretty  much  alike — the  charity,  in  fact,  of  indifference 
— but  another  sort;  a  hunger  for  what  is  true,  an 
exultation  in  the  sight  of  it,  and  such  an  estimate  and 
glory  in  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ,  that  no  distinction 
of  sect  or  form  shall  be  for  one  moment  worthy  to  be 
compared  with  it.  I  will  overleap  anything  that 
stands  between  me  and  truth.  Whoever  loves  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity  and  in  truth  is  my  brother. 
He  that  doeth  God's  will  was,  in  Christ's  judgment, 
His  mother,  His  sister,  His  brother,  His  friend,  His 
disciple."  ' 

Mr.  Beecher's  genius  was  recognized  by  a  limited 
circle  in  the  East.  Mr.  Wm.  T.  Cutter,  of  Brooklyn, 
one  of  the  fathers  of  Plymouth  Church,  had  visited 
him  in  the  West  in  the  autumn  of  1846,  and  to  this 
ardent  believer  in  Mr.  Beecher  great  credit  is  due  for 
his  labors  in  securing  Plymouth  Church  its  illustrious 
pastor.  Mr.  Beecher  had  been  informed  that  a  new 
Congregational  Church  was  to  be  organized  in 
Brooklyn,  and  that  the  property  formerly  owned  by 
the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  of  which  the  famous 
Dr.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox  was  pastor,  had  been  pur- 
chased, and  that  if  he  would  accept  n  call  given  by  this 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  212. 


106  HENRY     WARD     BEECHER. 

new  congregation,  a  salary  of  fifteen  hundred  dollars, 
and  probably  of  two  thousand  dollars,  would  be  given 
him.  Mr.  Beecher  was  unwilling  even  to  consider 
the  proposition,  but  he  accepted  an  invitation  to 
address  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society  that 
year  at  the  May  Anniversary  in  New  York.  Unsus- 
pectingly he  was  caught  in  this  trap  prepared  for  him 
by  William  T.  Cutter.  This  visit  resulted  in  the 
formation  of  Plymouth  Church,  the  chief  promoters 
of  the  enterprise  being  David  Hale  of  the  Journal  of 
Commerce,  John  T.  Howard,  and  Henry  C.  Bowen. 
The  idea  which  dominated  the  founders  of  this 
famous  Church  was  "  to  combine  the  descendants  of 
the  Pilgrims  in  a  new  and  more  general  movement  to 
introduce  democratic  and  Puritan  principles  and 
policy  into  ecclesiastical  affairs."  '  The  people  were 
in  solemn  earnest,  and  faithful  in  their  frequent  meet- 
ings for  prayer.  One  of  the  early  members  testifies 
that  "  if  ever  a  church  was  founded  in  a  thorough 
consciousness  of  weakness  and  with  strong  wrestling 
in  prayer,  with  cries  and  tears  before  God,  it  was  the 
Plymouth  Church."  Mr.  Beecher  preached  for  this 
people  on  his  visit  to  New  York,  a  discourse  on 
"  Man's  Accountability  to  God."  It  was  rigidly 
orthodox  in  its  teachings  and  pungent  and  searching 
in  its  applications.  In  this  sermon  he  said:  "  I  know 
not  what  I  will  do  when  God  calls  my  soul  to  judg- 
ment. I  know  when  I  shall  look  back  on  my  life  it 
will  be  folly  to  attempt  to  justify  anything  I  have  ever 
done.  I  will  turn  to  Christ  and  say,  '  Thou  hast 
promised  to  save  me  if  I  would  trust  in   Thee,  and  I 


1  "  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  40. 


CALL    TO    BROOKLYN.       EARLY    REVIVALS.  107 

have  trusted  in  Thee  and  now  I  claim  the  fulfillment 
of  Thy  promise,  O  Lord!  Here  I  am,  and  my  only 
hope  is  in  Thee.'  And  then  Christ  will  throw  around 
about  me  the  shield  of  His  righteousness,  not  because 
I  am  not  a  sinner,  but  because  I  am  a  sinner,  loved 
and  shielded  of  Christ."  ' 

Mr.  Beecher  would  not  consider  a  call  to  the 
Church  which  did  not  really  exist,  and  which  was 
houseless  as  well  as  non-existent.  Accordingly,  on 
Sunday  evening,  June  13,  1847,  Plymouth  Church 
was  organized  with  a  membership  of  twenty-one,  on 
the  very  ground  which  was  afterward  occupied  by 
the  building  which  Mr.  Beecher  made  famous  in  the 
annals  of  freedom,  and  which  divides  with  the  Old 
South  Church  of  Boston  the  honor  of  being  the 
historic  Church  of  America.  Rev.  Richard  S.  Storrs, 
Jr.,  pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  preached 
the  sermon  on  this  eventful  occasion,  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  Mr.  Beecher  was  unanimously  invited  by 
Church  and  society  to  become  their  pastor.  He  was 
not  permitted  to  rest  from  considering  this  call.  Mr. 
Bowen  sent  him  nearly  thirty  letters  urging  his 
acceptance.2 

All  the  arguments  and  inducements  which  were 
powerfully  brought  to  bear  upon  him  would  very 
likely  have  utterly  failed  had  it  not  been  evident 
that  Mrs.  Beecher's  health,  and  probably  her  life, 
were  jeoparded  by  a  longer  abiding  in  the  West. 
After  two  months  of  deliberation,  during  which  he 
realized    how    loth    he    was  to    leave    his    "  Indiana 


1    '  The  History  of  Plymouth  Church,"  by  Noyes  L.  Thompson, 
p.  56.     2  "  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  90. 


108  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

bishopric,"  he  decided  to  relinquish  his  pastoral 
charge  in  Indianapolis,  and  in  a  letter  of  great  tend- 
erness directed  to  the  Elders  of  the  Second 
Presbyterian  Church,  he  gave  in  his  resignation. 
Seven  da)rs  later  he  wrote  to  the  committee  of  Ply- 
mouth Church  an  acceptance  of  their  call,  expressing 
his  diffidence  in  regard  to  the  responsibilities  of  the 
new  field  and  also  his  perfect  trust  in  the  Saviour  he 
was  to  preach.  On  breaking  up  his  home  he  distrib- 
uted among  a  half  dozen  friends  the  rare  plants  and 
precious  exotics  which  he  had  gathered,  and  also  left 
with  them  the  fragrance  of  a  loving  and  consecrated 
life,  whose  memory  lingers  still  in  the  traditions  of 
the  city. 

He  had  received  and  declined  a  call  from  the 
famous  Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1847.  He  preferred  to  build  on  new  foun- 
dations. Aided  by  the  characteristic  generosity  of 
Plymouth  Church  he  was  enabled  to  pay  his  debts 
in  Indianapolis,  and  removed  with  his  family  in  Octo- 
ber to  Brooklyn.  One  of  the  founders  of  Plymouth 
Church,  Mr.  John  T.  Howard,  writes  of  the  great  joy 
which  his  letter  of  acceptance  brought  to  Brooklyn.  ' 

"  It  would  probably  seem  rather  a  comical  sight 
to  the  younger  members  of  the  Church  to  see 
Mr.  Bowen  and  myself  in  each  other's  arms,  cry- 
ing and  laughing  and  capering  about  like  a  couple 
of  schoolboys  ;  yet  that  sight  might  have  been 
seen  the  evening  that  Mr.  Bowen  came  to  my  house 
with  a  letter  which  he  had  received  from  Mr.  Beecher, 
It  was  sealed  with  one  of  those  little  picture  seals  of 


1  Howard's  "  Life,"  pp.  131-132. 


CALL    TO    BROOKLYN.       EARLY    REVIVALS.  109 

paper  in  vogue  in  those  days.  The  picture  was  a 
gate  thrown  from  its  fastenings,  and  the  motto  '  I  am 
all  unhinged.'  That  told  the  story,  and  the  result 
we  are  rejoicing  over  during  this  happy  week."  ' 

When  we  consider  the  immense  consequences  to 
the  political  and  religious  history  of  America  result- 
ing from  this  transfer,  we  are  reminded  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  departure,  fourteen  years  later,  from  another 
Western  capital  to  enter  upon  the  solemn  duties  of 
the  Presidency.  Mr.  Beecher's  journey,  however,  was 
unheralded  and  uneventful,  although  interesting 
from  the  fact  that  he  is  said  to  have  left  Indianapolis  on 
the  first  passenger  train  which  was  run  on  a  recently 
built  railroad.  Mrs.  Beecher  was  doubtless  overjoyed 
in  the  hope  of  restored  health,  although  if  the  inci- 
dent be-  true,  the  journey  was  not  one  of  unmixed 
pleasure.  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Beecher,  youthful  and 
happy,  was  exceedingly  attentive  to  the  delicate  and 
sad-faced  wife  who  had  so  long  been  an  invalid.  He 
jumped  from  the  train  at  one  of  the  stations  to  pro- 
vide for  her  bodily  needs.  But  an  old  lady,  attracted 
by  Mrs.  Beecher's  miserable  looks,  said  to  her  with 
encouraging  sympathy  :  "  Cheer  up,  my  dear  madam, 
cheer  up.  Surely  whatever  may  be  your  trial,  you 
have  cause  for  great  thankfulness  to  God  who  has 
given  you  such  a  kind  and  attentive  son." 

The  Brooklyn  of  1847  was  a  village  compared  with 
the  splendid  city  of  to-day.  All  the  churches  are 
said  to  have  been  within  a  mile  of  Fulton  Ferry,  and 
boys  are  reported  to  have  picked  blackberries  within 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  present  City  Hall,  before 


1  "  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  51, 


IIO  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

which  the  bronze  statue  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  now 
stands.  The  leading  preachers  in  the  City  of  Churches 
in  1846  were:  the  Rev.  H.  S.  Spencer,  D.  D.,  the  vigor- 
ous and  argumentative  pastor  of  the  Second  Presby- 
terian Church;  the  eloquent  and  stately  Dr.  Francis 
Vinton,  of  the  Emmanuel  Church;  the  Rev  .S.  T.  Spear, 
of  the  South  Presbyterian  Church;  Dr.  J.  S.  Stone, 
of  Christ  Church;  the  Rev.  M.  W.  Jacobus,  of  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church;  the  Rev.  M.  W.  Dwight, 
of  the.  First  Dutch  Church;  the  Rev.  S.  M.  Wood- 
bridge  of  the  South  Dutch  Church;  the  Rev.  Jacob 
Brodhead,  D.  D.,  of  the  Central  Dutch  Church;  the 
Rev.  B.  B.  Cutler,  D.  D.,  of  St.  Ann's  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church;  the  Rev.  George  Duffield,  of  the 
Fifth  Presbyterian  Church;  the  learned  and  eccentric 
Dr.  Samuel  Hanson  Cox,  "  with  mind  like  an  auroral 
heaven";  and  the  youthful  pastor  of  the  Church  of 
the  Pilgrims,  then  the  Rev.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  Jr., 
who  still  holds  on  in  his  radiant  way,  the  undisputed 
master  among  living  Americans  of  all  the  graces  and 
powers  of  the  loftiest  pulpit  eloquence. 

It  was  greatly  feared  by  many  that  Mr.  Beecher, 
however  successful  he  may  have  been  as  a  Western 
missionary,  would  not  be  found  adequate  to  the 
requirements  of  a  cultivated  Eastern  city.  They 
feared  that  his  bold  utterances  and  original  ways,  and 
especially  his  habit  of  outspoken  denunciation  on  the 
subject  of  slavery,  would  never  be  tolerated  in  New 
York,  the  metropolis,  of  which  Brooklyn,  then  a  town 
of  sixty  thousand  people,  was  the  sleeping-room.  It 
was  prophesied  that  his  career  would  be  disastrously 
brief,  and  even  friends  and  relatives  appeared  to  doubt 
the  results  of  his  sudden  change.      But  Mr.   Beecher 


CALL  TO  BROOKLYN.   EARLY  REVIVALS.      Ill 

came  to  Brooklyn  with  a  stout  heart  and  with  a  single 
thought — zeal  for  Christ — to  preach  what  he  under- 
stood to  be  the  Gospel  of  Christ;  and  his  first  sermon 
on  October  n,  1847,  was  directed  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
and  His  power  as  the  source  of  all  true  religion. 
In  the  evening  he  plainly  told  his  people  that  he 
had  come  to  apply  Christianity  to  intemperance,  to 
slavery,  and  to  all  the  great  national  sins,  that  he 
would  apply  it  without  stint  and  sharply  and  strongly, 
and  that  he  was  to  wear  no  fetters  and  to  be  bound 
by  no  precedent.  And,  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of 
fearful  friends,  he  continued  to  announce  his  purpose 
and  programme  every  year,  especially  just  before  the 
annual  renting  of  pews.  There  were  few  churches 
within  the  bounds  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn  which 
at  that  time  had  the  courage  to  speak  a  brave  word 
for  liberty.  It  is  no  wonder  that  a  Church  thus 
sifted,  like  Plymouth  Church  from  the  start,  and  con- 
secrated by  its  great  leader,  should  have  become  a 
landmark  in  the  history  of  liberty  and  of  civilization 
in  the  New  World. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  publicly  installed  on  the  nth  of 
the  following  November.  The  examination  of  the 
candidate  by  the  Council  which  had  been  summoned 
was  extended  and  thorough.  He  proved  unpleasantly 
rusty  in  his  theology,  and  not  up  to  the  New  England 
standard  in  his  orthodoxy,  but  his  wit  was  never 
lacking.  To  the  question  of  Dr.  Humphrey,  who 
was  his  college  President — "  Do  you  believe  in  the 
preservance  of  the  saints?"  Mr.  Beecher  replied  : 
"  I  was  brought  up  to  believe  that  doctrine,  and  I 
did  believe  it  till  I  went  out  West  and  saw  how  East- 
ern Christians    lived  when    they  went  out  there.     I 


112  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

confess  since  then  I  have  had  my  doubts."  Though 
many  of  his  answers  were  unexpected  and  startling, 
a  unanimous  vote  sustained  the  examination.  Dr. 
Bushnell  said  :  "I  am  glad  to  find  one  candidate  who 
knows  the  Lord  Jesus  and  His  Gospel."1  Some  of 
those  who  had  part  in  the  installation  services  were 
themselves  men  of  high  rank.  Besides  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Hewitt,  of  Bridgeport,  Connecticut,  and  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Lansing,  of  New  York,  there  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hum- 
phrey, of  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  one  of  a  distinguished 
family  ;  there  was  the  preacher  of  the  sermon,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  then  of  the  Salem  Church, 
Boston;  there  was  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell  of  Hartford, 
who  that  year  had  published  his  masterly  work  on 
Christian  Nurture  ;  there  was  the  Rev.  Joseph  P. 
Thompson,  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  of  New 
York,  the  eminent  scholar  and  later  one  of  the 
chief  editors  of  The  Indepe?ide?it ;  and  there  was  the 
Rev.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  Jr.,  of  the  Church  of  the 
Pilgrims,  by  one  year  Mr.  Beecher's  senior  in  service 
in  Brooklyn,  although  eight  years  his  junior  in  age. 

A  great  metropolitan  center,  like  New  York  and 
Brooklyn,  was  required  for  the  unequaled  career  upon 
which  Mr.  Beecher  was  now  to  enter.  Men  have  been 
great  preachers  in  small  places,  as  Edwards,  Bush- 
nell, Jeremy  Taylor,  Richard  Baxter,  Robertson, 
Kingsley,  and  many  others  abundantly  witness.  But, 
under  the  conditions  of  modern  life,  the  successful 
leadership  in  political  and  religious  reform  which  Mr. 
Beecher  achieved  was  possible  only  in  theconspicuity 
and  far-reaching  influence  of  a  great  commercial  and 


'"Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  52. 


CALL    TO    BROOKLYN.       EARLY    REVIVALS.  II3 

intellectual  capital  like  New  York.  The  year  1847  is, 
therefore,  a  chief  landmark  in  his  life. 

The  saintly  William  Ellery  Channing  had  passed 
away  five  years  before.  More  than  a  year  had 
elapsed  since  Theodore  Parker  had  begun  his 
prodigious  labors  in  Boston,  where  he  accom- 
plished a  notable  work  in  arousing  the  North- 
ern conscience  in  regard  to  slavery.  Lowell  was 
writing  his  unequaled  and  stinging  satires,  the  First 
Series  of  the  "Biglow  Papers."  George  William  Curtis 
was  sauntering  through  Europe,  and  had  not  yet  begun 
to  exercise  his  gentle  and  yet  powerful  influence  over 
the  whole  higher  life  of  America.  Horace  Greeley 
had  for  six  years  been  conducting  The  New  York  Trib- 
une; Sumner  had  just  begun  his  great  anti-slavery 
work;  Lincoln  was  serving  his  only  term  in  Congress; 
Chase  was  acting  as  attorney-general  for  runaway 
negroes,  and  Garrison  and  Phillips  were  leading  the 
forlorn  hope  of  Abolitionism.  In  the  year  following 
John  Quincy  Adams,  the  champion  of  the  right  of 
petition  in   Congress,  was  to   close  his  great   career. 

Those  who  were  famous  men  in  the  pulpit  of  that  day 
have  nearly  all  of  them  fallen  into  obscurity.  The 
elaborate  and  eloquent  portrayal  of  that  time,  or 
more  accurately  of  the  year  previous,  which  Dr. 
Richard  S.  Storrs  has  given  in  his  Memorial  Sermon 
on  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  preserves  a  great 
number  of  names  lustrous  in  their  own  community 
during  their  lives,  which  stir  but  few  memories  in  a 
younger  generation.  Rev.  Theodore  L.  Cuyler  had 
graduated  from  Princeton  Seminary,  but  had  not 
yet  been  ordained  to  the  ministry.  Other  eminent 
pastors  and  preachers,  dear  to  the  hearts  of  this  gen- 
8 


114  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

eration,  were  then  boys  at  school.  The  name  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  has  grown,  in  spite  of  temporary 
obscurations,  more  potent  and  luminous  with  the 
passing  years,  not  only  because  of  his  preeminent 
genius,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  his  career  became 
intimately  identified  with  what  the  Duke  of  Argyle 
has  pronounced  the  "  greatest  cause  which,  in  ancient 
or  modern  times,  has  been  pleaded  at  the  bar  of  the 
moral  judgment  of  mankind." 

Recalling  the  anti-slavery  crusade,  Mr.  Beecher 
once  described  as  the  "  greatest  work  of  the 
modern  century,  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves 
in  America,  by  which  the  industry  of  the  Continent 
was  also  emancipated,  and  by  which  the  Church 
and  Religion  itself  were  saved  from  a  worse 
than  Babylonian  captivity."  In  truth,  those  years 
of  stormy  agitation,  in  which  he  took  a  most 
conspicuous  part,  removed  the  chief  danger  to  the 
American  nationality,  solidified  free  institutions, 
kindled  a  new  faith  in  God's  overruling  providence, 
enlarged  the  mental  horizon  of  the  New  World,  lifted 
the  American  Republic  out  of  many  prejudices  and 
provincialisms,  created  American  literature,  raised 
the  moral  tone  of  the  masses,  brought  America  into 
active  sympathy  with  the  best  thought  of  the  Old 
World,  liberated  a  race,  and  began  their  preparation 
for  the  redemption  of  the  African  Continent. 

There  is  no  equipment  for  the  never-ending  work 
of  reform  more  needful  than  the  vivid  sense  of  indi- 
vidual responsibility  which  ought  to  be  felt  by  every 
citizen  of  a  free  commonwealth.  As  Mr.  Beecher 
said:  "  Each  individual  citizen  is  responsible  to  the 
degree  of  influence  which  he  has,  and  if  he  does  not 


CALL   TO    BROOKLYN.       EARLY    REVIVALS.  115 

exert  it  he  is  responsible  for  a  neglect  of  duty — a 
binding  duty.  He  is  bound  to  create  a  public  senti- 
ment that  shall  work  for  virtue.  He  is  bound  to 
drain  the  community  of  all  those  evils  that  run 
together  and  form  a  channel  for  vice  and  crime."  ' 

Mr.  Beecher's  enormous  vitality,  his  immense 
and  self-rectifying  common  sense,  his  wide  sym- 
pathies with  men  of  all  classes,  his  indomitable 
energy  and  unflinching  courage,  his  piercing  wit 
and  abounding  humor,  these  were  elements  of 
power  continually  augmenting  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  which  fitted  him  marvelously  well  for  the 
life  of  reformatory  activity  into  which  he  had 
already  entered.  When  we  unite  with  these  elements, 
as  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs  said  at  the  Plymouth  Church 
Silver  Wedding,  "  a  somewhat  vehement  and  combat- 
ive nature,  that  always  gets  quickened  and  fired  by 
opposition,  as  you  have  found,  and  that  never  is  so 
self-possessed,  so  serene,  and  so  victorious,  as  when 
the  clamor  is  loudest  around  him  and  the  fight  is 
fiercest — and  if  you  add  very  fixed  and  positive  ideas 
on  all  the  great  ethical,  social,  and  public  questions  of 
the  time — there  you  have  the  champion  reform-fighter 
of  the  last  twenty-five  years."  2 

It  was  most  fortunate  that  Mr.  Beecher  was  able 
to  yoke  with  him  in  his  great  life-work  such  a  sym- 
pathetic and  mighty  auxiliary  force  as  Plymouth 
Church,  under  his  ministry,  became.  In  reviewing 
twenty-five  years  of  their  history  together  he  said  : 
"  It   has  always   been   my  faith   and   feeling  that  the 


'"  Biography,"  p.  219. 

3  "  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  pp.  80-81. 


Il6  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

great  objects  contemplated  by  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
would  fail  of  accomplishment  if  they  were  left  chiefly 
to  the  hands  of  a  professional  clergy  ;  that  there 
never  would  be  the  work  done  that  was  necessary  till 
the  whole  body  of  Christians  became,  as  it  were,  min- 
isters of  Christ.  And  among  the  earliest  things  I  had 
in  my  mind  and  heart  when  I  first  came  was,  May 
it  please  God  to  gather  together  here  a  body  of 
Christian  men  and  women  who  shall  be,  each  in 
his  several  place,  not  simply  a  witness  to  the  grace 
of  God  in  his  own  heart,  but  a  worker  together  with 
me  in  the  dissemination  of  the  Gospel.  This  desire 
has  been  answered  ;  and  there  has  been,  for  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  in  connection  with  Plymouth 
Church,  a  large  and  increasing  band  of  devoted  men 
and  women.  A  more  zealous  or  active  body  I  have 
never  known." 

The  Audience-room  in  which  Mr.  Beecher  began 
his  preaching  in  Brooklyn  was  rapidly  filled  to  over- 
flowing, and  revivals  of  great  power,  accompanied 
by  daily  morning  prayer-meetings,  refreshed  and 
strengthened  the  Church,  so  that  in  two  years  the 
membership  had  risen  to  over  four  hundred,  more 
than  one  hundred  and  fifty  uniting  with  the  Church 
in  the  year  1848.  Mr.  Beecher  to  a  degree  equaled 
by  few  men  in  any  generation,  was  filled  with  zeal 
for  the  conversion  of  men  to  Christ,  and  for  their 
edification  in  Christian  living.  In  him  was  a  large 
measure  of  the  Pauline  spirit  which  led  his  father  to 
say,  that  "  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world  is  to  save 
souls." 


CHAPTER    XII. 

A   HISTORIC  CHURCH. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  early  thrust  into  the  highest 
conspicuousness  as  a  champion  of  liberty  by  a 
remarkable  scene  in  which  he  appeared  as  a  slave- 
auctioneer  in  1848.  The  case  of  the  Edmonson 
sisters  drew  the  attention  of  the  whole  country. 
Their  mother  was  a  slave,  and,  after  they  had  grown 
to  womanhood,  their  mother's  owner  determined  to 
send  them  from  the  City  of  Washington,  where  they 
had  been  living,  down  to  New  Orleans,  where  their 
beauty  and  attractiveness  would  bring  him  a  large  sum 
in  the  market.  The  girls  made  a  desperate  attempt  to 
escape  aboard  the  Pearl  schooner  ;  but  the  ship  was 
taken  and  their  pitiable  story  became  known  at  the 
North.  The  heart-broken  father,  a  free  colored  man, 
had  gone  to  New  York  to  raise  the  exorbitant  sum 
which  the  owner  demanded.  "  The  old  man  was 
finally  advised  to  go  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and  ask 
his  aid.  He  made  his  way  to  the  door  of  the  great 
Brooklyn  preacher's  house,  but,  overcome  by  many  * 
disappointments  and  fearing  to  meet  with  another 
rebuff,  hesitated  to  ring  the  bell,  and  sat  down  on 
the  steps  with  tears  streaming  from  his  eyes."1 

Mr.  Beecher  having  heard  his  story,  offered  to  do 
what  he  could. 


1  "  The  Life  of  Harriet  Beecher  Slowe,"  p.  179. 


Il8  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

With  others  he  spoke  at  a  great  meeting,  held  in 
the  Broadway  Tabernacle  in  New  York,  where  the 
sum  of  two  thousand  two  hundred  dollars  was  raised 
by  which  the  captives  were  set  free.  Probably  in  all 
his  life  he  never  delivered  a  more  effective  speech 
than  that  spoken  on  this  occasion  on  which  he  made 
an  impassioned  appeal  for  the  sisters  in  bondage  ; 
"  He  extemporized  there  on  the  stage  the  auction  of 
a  Christian  slave.  The  enumeration  of  his  qualities 
by  the  auctioneer,  and  the  bids  that  followed  were 
given  by  the  speaker  in  perfect  character.  He  made 
the  scene  as  realistic  as  one  of  Hogarth's  pictures 
and  as  lurid  as  a  Rembrandt."1 

He  described  the  qualities  and  excellencies,  intel- 
lectual, moral,  and  spiritual,  of  the  human  chattel. 
"  And  more  than  all  that,  gentlemen,  they  say  he  is 
one  of  those  praying  Methodist  niggers;  who  bids? 
A  thousand — fifteen  hundred— two  thousand — twenty- 
five  hundred?  Going,  going  !  Thelastcall?  Gone!" 
It  is  said  that  the  excitement  which  followed  was 
frenzied  and  the  money  required  flowed  in  like 
stream  ;  and  Mr.  Beecher  thought  that  of  all  the 
meetings  he  ever  attended  none  surpassed  this  "  for 
a  panic  of  sympathy." 

Mrs.  Stowe  became  personally  responsible  for  the 
education  of  these  liberated  girls.  In  1852  their  old 
mother  came  North  in  order  to  rescue  two  other  of 
her  children  from  the  slave-trader's  clutches,  and 
through  the  efforts  of  Mrs.  Stowe  a  sufficient  amount 
of  money  was  raised  for  the  liberation  of  the  children 
and    of  the    mother    too.     Such    were   some    of    the 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  292-293. 


A    HISTORIC    CHURCH.  119 

excitements  and  moral  agitations  which  marked  the 
beginning  of  Mr.  Beecher's  Eastern  ministry.  He 
had  the  enthusiastic  sympathy  of  his  people  from 
the  start,  and  their  almost  complete  identification 
with  the  convictions  and  purposes  of  their  pastor 
made  them  a  force  which  vastly  extended  his  influence. 

Reviewing  the  beginnings  of  his  own  ministry  in 
Brooklyn,  he  said  :  "  I  had  a  very  strong  impression 
on  my  mind  that  the  first  five  years  in  the  life  of  a 
Church  would  determine  the  history  of  that  Church, 
and  give  to  it  its  position  and  genius  ;  that  if  the 
earliest  years  of  a  Church  were  controversial  or 
barren,  it  would  take  scores  of  years  to  right  it  ;  but 
that  if  a  Church  were  consecrated  and  active  and 
energetic  during  the  first  five  years  of  its  life,  it 
would  probably  go  on  for  generations  developing  the 
same  features.  I  went  into  this  work  with  all  my 
soul,  preaching  night  and  day,  visiting  incessantly, 
and  developing,  as  fast  and  far  as  might  be,  that  social, 
contagious  spirit  which  we  call  a  revival  of  religion." 
The  history  of  Plymouth  Church  became  one  of 
great  and  frequent  revivals,  and,  though  the  spiritual 
life  was  interrupted  in  part  by  great  national  excite- 
ments, there  continued  to  be  for  many  years  not  only 
a  remarkable  growth  in  numbers  but  also  "a  steady 
increase  in  the  ratio  of  awakenings  and  conversions," 
and  the  pastor  could  say  in  1872,  "The  last  five  years 
have  been  more  fruitful  than  any  equal  period  in  our 
history."  Among  the  most  faithful  and  steadfast 
members  were  some  who  entered  the  Church  during 
the  first  few  months  of  his  ministry. 

The  old  church  building  was  fortunately  destroyed 
by  fire,  January  13,  1849.     A.  large  temporary   taber- 


120  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

nacle  was  soon  built  upon  ground  on  Pierrepont 
street,  offered  to  the  society  by  that  liberal-handed 
Christian  and  staunch  friend  of  the  slave,  Mr.  Lewis 
Tappan.  A  new  and  much  larger  structure  was  soon 
planned,  and  the  corner-stone  was  laid  on  May  29, 
1849.  The  new  Plymouth  Church  with  its  Lecture- 
room  and  Sunday-school  consisted  of  two  buildings 
under  a  single  roof  and  reached  from  Orange  street 
through  to  Pineapple  street.  This  building,  the  his- 
toric structure  which  now  stands,  was  first  used  by 
the  congregation  on  the  opening  Sunday  of  the  year 
1850. 

Mr.  Gladstone  has  said  that  the  progress  of  civili- 
zation during  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  probably  surpassed  the  progress  made  in  all 
the  preceding  ages,  and  that  the  progress  of  the  next 
twent}r-five  years  even  outran  the  advancement 
achieved  during  the  preceding  fifty.  With  the  open- 
ing of  the  new  Plymouth  Church  in  the  closing  year 
of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  mighty 
moral  force  was  made  ready  for  the  giant  and  swift 
victories  of  the  coming  age.  For  nearly  forty  years 
the  voice  that  was  heard  within  its  walls  carried  mes- 
sages of  truth  and  inspiration  to  the  ends  of  the  civil- 
ized world.  "  Then  began,"  it  has  been  said,  "  that 
sound,  once  heard,  never  forgotten,  and  heard 
nowhere  else  so  continuously,  of  the  incoming  multi- 
tude, the  tread  of  hurrying  feet  like  the  sound  of 
many  waters,  as  the  crowd,  held  back  for  a  time  until 
pew-holders  have  been  in  part  accommodated,  press  in 
and  take  their  places."  ' 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  225. 


A    HISTORIC    CHURCH.  121 

Drawn  by  gratitude,  curiosity,  admiration,  they 
came  from  North  and  South,  from  the  far  East  and  the 
farther  West,  men,  women,  youth,  children,  of  all  con- 
victions and  conditions.  From  other  lands  they  came 
year  after  year,  with  the  preacher's  widening  fame, 
and  it  is  probable  that,  except  Westminster  Abbey, 
no  other  Church  of  English-speaking  nations  has  in 
this  century  been  visited  by  so  many  men  and  women 
of  renown. 

The  congregation  which  Mr.  Beecher  gradually 
drew  about  him  was  quite  as  representatively  Ameri- 
can as  that  gathered  by  any  other  pulpit  orator  in  the 
United  States.  Besides  the  children  of  the  Pilgrims 
and  Puritans,  the  distinctively  New  England  and 
Congregational  elements,  there  were  many  from 
Presbyterian,  Methodist,  Baptist,  and  other  Protestant 
Churches,  and  not  a  few  Catholics  were  friendly  to 
the  great-hearted  Christian  in  Plymouth  pulpit. 
There  were  in  the  congregation  quite  a  number  of 
eminent  merchants  and  other  business  men  of  wide 
repute  and  success,  some  of  them  benevolent  builders 
of  colleges  and  libraries  and  large  givers  to  missions, 
charities,  and  all  other  good  works.  The  Church 
grew  in  the  amount  of  its  benevolent  giving,  not,  of 
course,  to  the  immense  proportions  of  some  of  the 
wealthier  congregations  of  New  York,  Boston,  and 
Chicago,  but  still  to  such  an  extent  that  the  pastor 
and  people  of  Plymouth  Church  were  beset  by  the 
eager  and  hungry  solicitations  of  all  kinds  of  holy 
beggars. 

Mr.  Beecher  attracted  to  him  great  numbers  of  the 
younger  business  men  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn, 
and  in   his  congregation   were    found   many  college 


122  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

graduates,  school-teachers,  lawyers,  and  physicians  of 
reputation  and  scores  of  theological  students.  What 
may  be  called  the  great  middle  section  of  American 
society  was  thoroughly  at  home  in  Plymouth  Church 
— the  people  who  furnish  the  best  materials  for 
Christian  propagandism  and  manifest  the  greatest 
fidelity  to  Christian  duties.  While  Plymouth  Church 
cared  abundantly  for  the  poor  through  its  amply 
equipped  Missions,  the  great  body  of  its  people  were 
not  from  families  oppressed  with  want  or  living  on 
the  narrowest  competence.  Though  not  numbering 
so  large  a  percentage  of  the  very  rich  as  some  of  the 
other  Churches  of  Brooklyn  and  New  York,  the  intel- 
lectual and  social  rank  of  Plymouth  Church  was 
notably  far  higher  than  that,  for  example,  of  Mr. 
Spurgeon's  great  congregation  in  the  Metropolitan 
Tabernacle.  Plymouth  Church  naturally  became 
assimilated  to  the  character  and  spirit  of  its  large- 
minded,  democratic,  and  earnest-hearted  pastor.  It 
was  to  a  very  unusual  degree  a  congregation  of  men. 
But  it  was  more  than  a  congregation,  held  together 
by  the  magnetism  of  a  great  orator, — it  was  and  is  a 
Church  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  brotherhood  of  believers  in 
the  Son  of  God,  still  doing,  under  its  new  leaders, 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  and  his  associates,  a  very  large 
Christian  work  in  the  changed  conditions  of  a  "  down- 
town "  Church. 

During  the  greater  years  of  Mr.  Beecher's  ministry, 
it  would  be  hard  to  exaggerate  the  influence  wielded 
by  this  large  and  effective  organization  of  earnest, 
believing  men  and  women.  The  membership  of  the 
Sunday-schools  came  to  number  three  thousand;  the 
membership  of  the  Church  was  at  one  time  more  than 


A    HISTORIC    CHURCH.  123 

three  thousand,  while  the  entire  population  that 
looked  to  Plymouth  Church  as  in  some  sense  its 
spiritual  head,  numbered  at  one  time  not  less  than 
twelve  thousand. 

It  was  natural,  from  the  relation  of  Plymouth 
Church  and  its  pastor  to  great  national  events  in  the 
anti-slavery  times  and  in  the  years  of  the  Civil  War, 
that  there  should  be  an  unusual  development  of 
strong  patriotic  feeling  in  this  famous  congregation. 
The  patriotism  was  not  of  any  cheap  or  Fourth-of- 
July  order,  but  was  rather  that  deeper  and  purer  love 
of  the  country  and  its  flag  which  springs  from  a 
regard  for  liberty,  justice,  equality,  and  the  higher 
elements  of  a  Christian  civilization.  It  was  that  love 
of  country  which  is  now  so  widely  taught  and 
inspired  in  our  public  schools,  Sunday-schools,  and 
Churches,  and  which  has  had  such  apt,  forcible,  and 
frequent  expression  in  the  addresses  of  Benjamin 
Harrison.  In  this  development,  as  in  other  things, 
Plymouth  Church  was  a  noble  pioneer,  although  a 
similar  spirit  burned  in  other  Churches  of  the  North. 

Mr.  Beecher  always  realized  and  often  said  that  his 
congregation  was  not  a  mere  temperance  nor  anti- 
slavery  society,  held  together  by  a  human  leader.  It 
was  a  thoroughly  vitalized  Christian  Church,  carry- 
ing on  the  same  work  which  is  done  by  other 
Churches,  inspired,  however,  with  new  convictions 
with  regard  to  the  application  of  truth  to  the  problems 
and  perils  of  social  and  political  life.  In  the  years 
when  the  Church  was  most  active  in  the  anti-slavery 
trouble  the  sermons  on  slavery  were  comparatively 
infrequent.  "  My  impression  is,"  said  Mr.  Beecher, 
"  that  not,  perhaps,  more  than  once  or  twice  in  a  year 


124  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

was  the  subject  of  slavery  made  a  matter  of  discourse; 
and  that,  perhaps  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two 
periods  of  the  year,  the  teaching  and  conversation  of 
the  Church  turned  upon  the  deeper  themes  of  per- 
sonal experience,  and  upon  religion  as  it  exists  and  is 
talked  about  in  all  our  Christian  bodies."  ' 

Although  living  in  tumultuous  and  stormy  times 
Plymouth  Church  manifested  an  unusual  degree  of 
concord  and  fellowship,  and  the  pastor  attributed  this 
union  of  spirit,  in  a  Church  where  the  largest  liberty 
of  opinion  and  of  utterance  was  encouraged,  to  the 
effect  of  the  exaltation  of  Divine  love,  the  prominence 
given  to  the  teaching  of  Christ.  Whatever  defects 
may  be  charged  to  it  as  an  organization,  and  it  was 
made  up  of  fallible  men  and  women,  it  should  be 
remembered  to  the  credit  of  Plymouth  Church  that 
it  furnished  the  greatest  of  modern  preachers  the 
necessary  medium  of  his  chief  contribution  to  the  life 
of  his  own  age  and  after  generations.  It  was  the 
object  of  his  most  prayerful  solicitude  and  deepest 
love,  and  it  should  be  recorded,  not  only  to  its  renown 
but  to  the  credit  of  human  nature,  that  this  Church 
stood  as  a  wall  of  loving  hearts  around  its  trusted 
leader  in  the  dark  times  of  his  awful  agony  and  trial. 

Scores  of  thousands  now  living  cherish  sacred 
memories  of  the  building  which  housed  this  congre- 
gation, that  plain  structure,  quite  in  contrast  with 
the  ornate  and  stately  churches  which  America  is 
now  building,  and  with  the  statelier  cathedrals  of 
world-wide  celebrity  which  give  such  beautiful  dig- 
nity to  the  towns  and   cities   of  old    England.     The 


1  "  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  64. 


A   HISTORIC    CHURCH.  I25 

congregation  worshiped  in  a  building  of  exceeding 
plainness,  almost  barren  of  every  ornamentation 
except  that  given  by  the  majestic  organ  and  the 
flower-decked  pulpit  platform.  They  expended  large 
sums  to  beautify  the  mission  schools,  intended  for 
the  use  of  the  poor,  thus  giving  them  a  far  better 
external  equipment  than  they  ever  bestowed  on  them- 
selves, but  Plymouth  Church  though  plain  enough  to 
satisfy  the  strictest  Puritan  was  yet  thoroughly 
adapted  to  the  great  purpose  of  preaching  and  hear- 
ing the  Gospel.  As  an  audience-room  it  was  warmly 
praised  by  Charles  Dickens  and  many  others.  The 
preacher's  form  and  movements  were  not  hidden 
behind  a  pulpit  rampart  and  his  vitality  was  not  lost 
before  it  reached  the  first  pew.  The  galleries  were 
deep  ;  the  pews  swept  in  a  circle  about  the  platform; 
the  large  volunteer  choir  and  the  great  organ  were 
back  of  the  preacher  ;  there  was  no  broad  central 
aisle  to  stare  like  an  empty  lane  in  the  speaker's  face. 
A  sanctified  good  sense  brought  the  speaker  close  to 
his  hearers  and  quadrupled  his  effectiveness.  Not  only 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  but  the  matchless  Abolition 
orator,  Wendell  Phillips,  and  scores  of  eminent  men 
besides,  found  in  Plymouth  Church  the  opportunity 
for  bringing  their  convictions  to  bear  on  the  social 
and  political  life  of  their  times.  In  the  years  of  the 
War,  the  voice  which  spoke  to  eager  throngs  within 
its  plain,  white  walls,  reached  the  camp  of  the  soldier 
on  the  Potomac  and  on  the  Tennessee  and  was  heard 
from  the  coast  of  Maine  to  the  Pacific  shores.  In  a 
large  measure  it  brought  courage  and  gave  direction 
to  President,  Cabinet,  and  Congress  in  many  a  critical 
hour  of  that  momentous  struggle. 


126  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

The  seating  capacity  of  Plymouth  Church,  which 
was  originally  a  little  over  two  thousand,  was  aug- 
mented in  1857  by  placing  folding  seats  in  the  aisles, 
and  by  subsequent  devices  nearly  three  thousand 
people  were  accommodated  with  sitting  or  standing- 
room.  Not  infrequently  in  the  evening  as  many 
were  turned  away  as  could  enter.  In  1850  it  was  an 
act  of  great  faith  to  build  anything  so  spacious  as 
this  structure  for  a  youthful  Church,  but  if,  from  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War  to  the  close  of  his 
life,  Mr.  Beecher  had  been  accommodated  with  a  far 
more  spacious  tabernacle  in  a  more  convenient  and 
desirable  location,  he  would  easily  have  addressed 
audiences  equal  in  number  to  those  of  Mr.  Spurgeon, 
Canon  Liddon,  or  Dr.  Talmage.  From  1858  to  1861 
plans  were  formed  and  nearly  consummated  for  build- 
ing, in  a  new  location,  a  much  larger  and  more 
imposing  structure,  to  cost  about  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  But,  owing  to  a  variety  of  compli- 
cations, the  scheme  was  finally  abandoned. 

There  are  multitudes,  not  living  in  Brooklyn,  who 
to-day  think  of  Plymouth  Church  as  the  dearest  and 
most  cherished  place  that  is  haunted  by  their  grate- 
ful memories.  They  can  never  forget  the  happy  and 
homelike  feeling  with  which  they  there  sat  in  the 
company  of  eager  and  expectant  worshipers.  The 
white  walls  are  dear  to  them  from  their  very  plain- 
ness. The  great  organ  looms  before  their  imagination 
as  a  magic  storehouse  of  slumbering  musical  thunders 
or  of  flute-like  and  sweet-toned  harmonies,  awaiting 
the  touch  of  the  sympathetic  master.  They  see  the 
beaming  face,  in  later  years  adorned  with  long  white 
locks,  of  him  to  whom  every  eye  is  eagerly  turned  as 


A    HISTORIC    CHURCH.  127 

he  ascends  the  platform,  and,  sometimes  with  an 
almost  transfigured  look,  gazes  over  the  inspiring 
throng.  They  still  hear  the  echoes  of  the  grand 
hymns  in  which  pastor  and  congregation,  choir  and 
organ,  all  united  until  it  seemed  almost  as  if  they 
were  standing  in  the  general  assembly  and  Church  of 
the  First-born.  They  remember  the  hush  which  fell 
over  the  congregation  as  Mr.  Beecher  rose,  and  in 
quietest  tones  asked  the  Father's  blessing.  "  Because 
Thou  art  good,  and  because  Thou  hast  called  unto 
our  souls  we  have  come  to  appear  in  Zion  and  before 
God.  Now,  what  wait  we  for  ?  Open  Thine  arms 
for  us.  Give  forth  from  Thine  heart  that  inspiration 
which  shall  make  everything  in  us  rise  up  and 
acknowledge  our  filial  relation.  With  all  our  hearts 
and  souls  may  we  be  able  to  call  Thee  our  Father, 
and,  this  day,  to  rejoice  somewhat  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  that  realm  of  righteousness  and  wealth  of  joy 
which  Thou  hast  for  Thine  Own  Self,  and  for  all  that 
are  heirs  through  Jesus  Christ  of  Thy  great  salva- 
tion." ] 

They  recall  their  gladness  as  he  opened  unto  them 
the  Scriptures,  often  making  the  hard  places  easy, 
and  the  dark  places  bright  by  his  swift  interpretative 
comment.  They  still  hear  those  strangely  sympathetic 
tones  of  voice  with  which  he  read  many  of  the  words 
of  Moses  or  of  Isaiah,  of  Paul  or  of  the  Divine  Teacher. 
And  then  what  a  revelation  of  God's  nearness  and 
sympathy  with  men,  what  a  sweet  disclosure  of  the 
divineness  of  life  came  to  the  hushed  thousands  as 
Mr.  Beecher  uttered  his  memorable  prayers,  "  sunning 


1  "  Book,  of    Prayer,"  p. 


128  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

his  thoughts  and  feelings  in  the  light  of  God's  face/ 
Multitudes  still  feel  that  they  have  never  elsewhere 
been  so  near  to  Heaven  as  when  this  servant  of  Christ 
was  talking  with  the  Lord  and  carrying  the  sorrows 
and  troubles  and  perplexities  of  his  people  to  the 
heart  of  the  Father  in  Heaven. 

Who  can  forget  his  prayers  of  thanksgiving? 
"  And  now  our  Father  what  can  we  say  to  Thee  ? 
What  utterances  of  thanks  can  seem  other  than 
foolish  by  the  side  of  such  mercy  ? "  "  We  are 
surrounded  by  the  memorials  and  memories  and 
testimonies  of  Thy  goodness  to  us."  "  We  desire, 
O  God,  no  other  service.  Thy  law  is  holy  and 
just  and  good,  and  Thy  service  with  its  yoke 
and  burden  is  more  truly  liberty  and  lightness 
than  the  freest  service  of  the  world  and  its  sin.  Then 
only  do  we  feel  ourselves  without  care  when  we  are 
most  entirely  surrendered  to  the  spirit  and  will  of 
our  Father  in  Heaven,  when  we  feel  that  our  life  is 
flowing  with  Thine,  that  we  are  a  part  of  the  great 
scheme  of  redemption,  that  we  are  being  borne  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  that  we  are  of 
them  that  are  to  be  registered  in  Heaven." 

And  then  how  often  they  have  felt  it  easier  to  bear 
burdens,  as  they  entered  into  sympathy  with  him  who 
prayed  :  "  May  we  rejoice  to  suffer  with  Christ.  May 
we  esteem  it  more  than  all  the  treasures  of  Egypt. 
And,  Lord  Jesus,  make  us  worthy  to  suffer  for  Thee, 
and  make  us  worthy  to  have  our  names  cast  out  for 
righteousness'  sake."  "  O  Thou  Father,  find  Thy 
children  to-day,  and  speak  peaceable  words  to  them. 
Comfort  any  that  mourn  over  sin,  and  may  their 
mourning  do  them  good.     Speak  forgiveness  to  any 


A    HISTORIC    CHURCH.  129 

that  scarcely  dare  to  look  into  Thy  face,  and  may  they 
glance  there  to  behold  it,  not  as  the  darkness  of  life 
but  as  the  glow  of  morning,  full  of  hope  and  promise:" 

And  how  often  their  hearts  were  inspired  with  new 
courage  for  national  conflicts  !  "Grant  that  in  this 
great  nation  there  may  be  none  that  will  shrink  from 
duty,  none  that  shall  fear  to  speak  and  act  for  truth 
and  for  liberty,  none  that  shall  retreat  in  the  day  of 
conflict,  or  stand  indifferent,  when  Heaven  and  earth 
are  commingled."  And  how  tenderly  he  prayed  for 
the  whole  world,  over  which  his  loving  thoughts 
seemed  to  spread  like  the  sunrise  !  "  O  bring  this 
world  at  last  to  the  bosom  of  Christ,  and  there  may 
it  find  that  anchorage  and  peace  which  it  has  so  long 
sought  in  vain  in  its  course." 

They  will  not  forget  his  prayers  for  the  Church 
universal  :  "  May  Thy  people  vex  each  other  less  and 
less,  distrust  less  and  less,  separate  themselves  less 
and  less.  Pour  out  Thy  spirit  upon  all  those  things 
that  are  bringing  Thy  servants  of  every  name  together, 
and  grant  that  this  bond  of  a  common  love  may  grow 
stronger  and  stronger  around  the  earth."  How  ten- 
derly he  prayed  for  himself  and  all  tempted  ones  ! 
"  Ours  is  yet  the  warfare,  we  yet  are  in  bodies  that 
require  our  severest  government  ;  we  are  attempting 
to  bring  every  thought  and  feeling  in  subjection  to 
Jesus  Christ's  law  ;  we  are  wrestling  with  pride  that 
refuses  coercion  and  watching  selfishness  that  presses 
like  a  flood." 

And  how  constantly  through  his  prayers  he  brought 

them  into  sympathy  with   God,  revealing   the  divine 

sympathy  to  them,  and  how  he  pictured,  as  if  he  saw 

it,  the  company  of  the  redeemed    in  glory  !    "  Thou 

9 


I30  HENRY     WARD     BEECHER. 

art  gathering  there  multitudes  which  no  man  can 
number.  From  every  age  Thou  hast  garnered  there; 
for  us  there  is  this  hope  and  this  joyful  anticipation. 
We  beseech  of  Thee  that  we  may  be  able  to  live  this 
life  in  the  body  with  a  constant  faith  of  the  great 
life  of  the  Spirit;  that  we  may  never  be  discouraged 
nor  beaten  down;  that  we  may  know  that  we  are  the 
King's  sons ;  though  exiled,  in  disguise  and  poverty, 
and  even  cast  into  shame,  may  we  remember  our 
birthright,  the  pleasure  that  awaits  us,  the  crown,  the 
throne,  the  scepter,  the  glory  of  immortal  and  per- 
petual youth  where  Thou  art.  When  the  former 
things  shall  have  passed  away,  when  sorrow  and  dying 
shall  have  fled,  when  Thou  shalt  have  wiped  the  tear 
from  every  eye,  and  when  Thou  dost  comfort  us  even 
as  a  father  comforts  his  child,  then,  in  that  blessed 
land  where  Thou  dwellest,  what  will  be  the  memory 
of  the  trouble  that  we  have  had  on  earth!  "  ' 

And  who  will  ever  forget,  who  knew  it  in  its  golden 
and  wondrous  prime,  the  varied  and  matchless  pow- 
ers of  that  eloquence  of  preaching  which  swept  with 
angelic  strength  and  splendor  over  the  whole  domain 
of  human  experience,  and  touched  every  chord  of 
memory  and  hope,  of  reason  and  imagination,  of 
playfulness  and  indignant  passion,  of  self-sacrifice 
and  of  sympathy  ?  It  seemed  at  times  as  if  all  the 
powers  of  the  great  organ  had  been  concentrated 
into  a  living  man,  through  whom  spake  the  living 
God,  now  uttering  his  voice  in  homelike  familiarity, 
and  then  with  the  trumpet's  most  piercing  and  pas- 
sionate notes,  now  with  the  plaintiveness  of  a  child's 


"  Prayers  from  Plymouth  Pulpit."     "  A  Book  of   Prayer." 


A   HISTORIC   CHURCH.  131 

pleading  cry  and  anon  with  a  Miltonic  sweep  and 
grandeur  of  sound,  like  the  thunderous  music  of  the 
ocean  shore. 

What  he  himself  has  written  in  describing  the 
prince  of  musical  instruments,  the  organ,  is  an  apt 
illustration  of  his  own  preaching  at  the  highest. 
"  The  organ  means  majesty;  it  means  grandeur.  It 
means  sweetness,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  sweetness  in 
power.  Whatever  it  has  of  sweetness,  of  fineness,  or 
of  delicacy,  there  is,  moreover,  an  under-power  that 
is  like  the  sea  itself.  Running  through  all  the  various 
qualities  of  tone,  as  soft  and  as  sweet  as  the  song- 
sparrow  (which  is  the  sweetest  bird  that  sings),  and 
in  its  complexity  rising  through  all  gradations,  imi- 
tating almost  everything  that  is  known  of  sounds  on 
earth,  it  expresses  at  last  the  very  thunder  and  the 
earthquake,  and  almost  the  final  trumpet  itself." 

A  study  of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  must  take  a 
special  chapter,  but  there  are  many  who  will  value  an 
attempt  to  record,  even  in  the  briefest  way,  some  of 
the  impressions  which  live  in  the  memories  of  those 
who  were  wont  to  find  in  Plymouth  Church  a  spiritual 
home,  and  in  Henry  Ward  Beecher  a  prophet  of  God 
who  thrilled  them  into  a  glad  consciousness  of  their 
divinest  possibilities. 


CHAPTER    XIIL 

THE    PRIVATE    AND    PEACEFUL    MINISTRY. 

In  order  to  secure  any  very  vivid  and  adequately 
full  impression  of  a  life  so  unusually  abundant  in 
vitality  and  varied  in  effort,  the  student  of  Mr. 
Beecher  will  do  well  to  fix  his  attention  for  a  time 
on  what  may  be  called  the  more  private  and  peaceful 
ministry  of  this  great  preacher  and  reformer;  on  the 
incidents  of  his  home  life  ;  on  the  training  and  growth 
of  his  Church,  and  on  the  studies  and  experiences  by 
which  his  nature  was  enriched,  before  he  follows 
him  into  the  great  and  stormy  arena  of  national 
debate  and  strife.  The  word  growth  explains  Mr. 
Beecher's  personality  and  achievements  almost  as 
much  as  the  word  genius.  The  man  of  thirty-four 
who  began  his  ministry  in  Brooklyn  and  made  but  a 
poor,  showing  before  his  theological  examiners  at  the 
time  of  his  installation,  is  an  intellectual  stripling  and 
tyro  compared  with  the  long-trained,  experienced, 
and  masterful  man  of  fifty-nine,  who  instructed, 
delighted,  and  electrified  famous  theological  profes- 
sors and  hundreds  of  Christian  ministers  in  his  "  Yale 
Lectures  on  Preaching." 

Mr.  Beecher's  education  was  largely  along  the  lines 
of  his  daily  work.  His  heart  was  sweetened  and 
made   still    more   sympathetic   by   domestic    sorrow 


THE    PRIVATE   AND    PEACEFUL   MINISTRY.  133 

in  the  first  year  of  the  Plymouth  pastorate.  By  the 
death  of  his  little  girl  (Caty)  shortly  after  the 
Beechers  came  to  Brooklyn,  he  was  taught  anew 
divine  ministry  of  grief,  and  the  hearts  of  pastor 
and  people  were  wedded  into  a  closer  unity  of  feel- 
ing. "I  was  held  up,"  he  says,  "by  increasing  love 
and  sympathy  on  every  side.  Of  this  world  I  had 
more  than  heart  could  wish  ;  of  friends,  never  so 
many  or  so  worth  having ;  and  the  effect,  as  might 
be  supposed,  has  answered  to  the  cause.  I  find  now 
that  it  is  with  me  as  with  mountains  in  spring  time — 
every  fissure  is  growing  to  a  rill,  every  patch  of  soil 
is  starting  its  flowers,  every  shrub  has  its  insect  and 
every  tree  its  bird."  1 

In  order  to  minister  to  the  ever-increasing  wants 
of  Plymouth  Church  Mr.  Beecher  needed  to  be  a  man 
of  wide  and  incessant  industry.  The  malign  proph- 
ecy that  he  would  hold  out  only  six  months  might 
possibly  have  been  a  true  one  had  he  not  continually, 
in  his  own  way,  fed  the  sources  of  his  intellectual 
and  spiritual  productiveness.  Some  one  has  said 
that  genius  burns,  but  it  needs  fuel  to  keep  it  burn- 
ing. John  Bright  regarded  it  as  a  great  and  almost 
an  unparalleled  mental  feat  that  any  man,  however 
resourceful,  should  make  two  successful  addresses 
to  the  same  congregation  every  week.  Mr.  Beecher  not 
only  did  this  for  the  period  of  nearly  forty  years, 
but  added  also  a  week-night  lecture  usually  spoken 
of  as  a  Lecture-room  Talk,  and  some  of  the  richest 
and  most  valuable  practical  suggestions  which  he  has 
left  were  given  at  these  familiar  meetings. 


1  "  Biography,"  p.   224. 


134  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

The  attendance  at  these  Friday-night  gatherings  of 
his  people  was  usually  very  large,  reaching  some- 
times seven  or  eight  hundred.  The  exercises  were 
lacking  in  the  formality,  stiffness,  and  solemnity  which 
formerly  characterized  almost  all  American  prayer- 
meetings.  Mr.  Beecher  contrived  to  come  into  closer 
relations  with  his  people  than  many  pastors  have 
been  able  to  do,  and  than  was  possible  to  him  from 
the  pulpit.  Although  he  usually  did  almost  all  the 
speaking,  he  elicited  by  skillful  questions  pertinent 
and  valuable  remarks  from  others,  was  patient  even 
with  bores,  and  often  succeeded  in  shutting  them  off, 
and  secured  a  large  degree  of  liberty  and  a  pervading 
home  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  congregation.  The 
American  historian,  James  Parton,  has  given  vivid 
pictures  of  Mr.  Beecher  in  his  lecture-room,  a  room 
high  and  brilliantly  lighted,  full  of  cheerful  company 
"  not  one  of  whom  seemed  to  have  on  more  or  richer 
clothes  than  she  had  the  moral  strength  to  wear." 
"  No  pulpit,  or  anything  like  a  pulpit,  casts  a  shadow 
over  the  scene;  but  in  its  stead  there  was  rather  a 
large  platform,  raised  two  steps,  covered  with  dark 
green  canvas,  and  having  upon  it  a  very  small  table 
and  one  chair."  "  At  one  side  of  the  platform  but  on 
the  floor  of  the  room,  among  the  settees,  there  was  a 
piano  open.  Mr.  Beecher  sat  near  by,  reading  what 
appeared  to  be  a  letter  of  three  or  four  sheets."  The 
whole  scene  was  so  "  informal,  unstudied,  and  social  " 
that  in  reporting  it  Mr.  Parton  felt  as  if  he  were 
"  reporting  for  print  the  conversation  of  a  private 
evening  party."  Mr.  Beecher  gave  out  a  hymn  by 
the  number  in  a  low  tone  of  voice,  the  piano  led  the 
singing,  which  was  joyous  and  unanimous.  The  pastor 


THE    PRIVATE    AND    PEACEFUL    MINISTRY.  I35 

in  a  iow  tone  pronounced  the  name  of  one  of  the 
brethren  who  led  in  prayer;  several  prayers,  brief  and 
simple,  alternated  with  the  singing.  "  The  meeting 
ran  along  in  the  most  spontaneous  and  pleasant  man- 
ner; and,  with  all  his  heartiness  and  simplicity,  there 
was  a  certain  refined  decorum  pervading  all  that  was 
done  and  said.  There  was  a  pause  after  the  last  hymn 
died  away,  and  then  Mr.  Beecher,  still  seated,  began, 
in  the  tone  of  conversation,  to  speak."  What  Mr. 
Beecher  said  at  meetings  like  this  has  largely  been 
gathered  up  and  published.  Many  of  his  wise  words 
at  these  informal  meetings  are  yet  to  be  given  to  the 
world. 

Christians  who  have  been  trained  to  value  a  prayer- 
meeting  by  the  number  and  fervor  of  the  prayers 
offered,  were  not  always  satisfied  with  the  happy,  easy, 
and  conversational  tone  and  the  apparent  lack  of 
wrestling  earnestness  manifested  in  these  meetings. 
More  time  was  given  to  singing  than  to  prayer,  and 
this  feature  of  his  meetings  he  justified  in  these  words 
from  his  "  Lectures  on  Preaching  ":  "In  the  prayer- 
meeting  music  ought  to  be  a  grand  substratum. 
They  are  called  prayer-meetings,  but  two  prayers  are 
often  enough  for  a  meeting — about  two  prayers  to  six 
hymns.  Why  ?  Because  out  of  every  six  people  that 
pray,  there  are  not  two  that  can  pray  as  a  hymn  can. 
It  is  not  probable  that  you  will  find  one  person  in  an 
average  congregation  of  two  hundred  that  can  express 
so  admirably,  with  such  subtle  lines,  the  dealing  of 
God  with  men,  as  Cowper  did.  It  is  not  once  in  a 
hundred  times  that  a  man  can  preach  so  much  sound 
Gospel  in  verse  as  old  John  Newton  did.  You  have 
very  few  men  like  Wesley   and   Watts,    who  are   the 


I36  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

two  wings  of  hymnody.  These  two  men  soar  as  few 
can  soar.     We  might  say, 

"  Descend,  immortal  clove  ; 
Take  us  upon  thy  wings. 

When  these  men  are  invoked,  they  take  the  whole 
congregation  on  their  wings  and  lift  them  up."  The 
more  Mr.  Beecher's  methods  are  studied,  the  more  it 
is  seen  that  he  was  a  skillful  fisher  of  men,  a  care- 
ful and  keen-eyed  student  of  the  motives  by  which 
human  hearts  are  stirred,  and  the  results  achieved  by 
him  amply  vindicate  his  general  wisdom.  In  saying 
this  it  is  not  intimated  that  his  methods  were  the 
best  in  their  adaptation  to  all  kinds  of  people. 

The  Friday  evening  meetings,  as  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott 
has  suggested,  furnished  Mr.  Beecher  his  "  pastoral 
opportunity."  "  Mr.  Beecher  never  does  any  house- 
to-house  visitation;  and  now  he  rarely  conducts  a 
funeral  or  calls  upon  those  in  sorrow.  But  he  never- 
theless does  a  considerable  amount  of  pastoral  work. 
At  the  close  of  his  Friday-evening  meeting  he  holds 
what  I  may  call  a  religious  reception.  For  sometimes 
half  an  hour  after  the  regular  service  is  closed,  he 
sits  on  the  platform  to  receive,  hear,  suggest,  counsel, 
direct.  He  shakes  hands  with  any  one  who  offers  him 
a  hand.  No  name  escapes  him.  A  friend  returned 
after  a  long  absence  is  instantly  recognized  and 
greeted  with  the  warm  cordiality  of  a  love  that  is 
without  dissimulation."  i 

Many  persons  now  living  will  remember  the  scenes 
in  the  lecture-room  on  the  Friday  evenings  before  the 
Communion   of  the   Lord's  Supper  was   to  be  cele- 


1  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  pp.  274-275. 


THE    PRIVATE   AND    PEACEFUL    MINISTRY.  137 

brated,  when  Mr.  Beecher  with  his  deacons  examined 
the  candidates  for  admission  into  the  Church.  A 
theological  student  from  the  Union  Seminary,  New 
York,  and  his  brother,  who  was  also  a  student  in  the 
same  seminary,  presented  their  letters  on  one  eve- 
ning. The  letters  were  in  the  usual  form,  but  they  were 
surprised  to  have  Mr.  Beecher  go  back  of  the  letters 
and  inquire  somewhat  into  their  personal  experience 
and  habits.  He  even  asked  them  what  position  they 
took  with  regard  to  the  use  of  intoxicating  drinks. 
They  both  replied  that  they  were  total  abstainers,  and 
Mr.  Beecher  was  glad  of  the  answer.  Mr.  Dwight  L. 
Moody,  then  almost  unknown  to  fame,  was  a  listener 
at  the  examination,  and  he  said:  "  Mr.  Beecher,  what 
would  you  have  done,  had  these  young  men  given  you 
a  different  reply?"  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "I  should 
have  put  them  off  for  awhile  and  counseled  with  them, 
hoping  to  bring  them  to  right  views." 

He  purposed  making  his  Church  a  socially  demo- 
cratic and  happy  congregation,  realizing  if  possible 
the  ideal  of  a  great  Christian  household.  The  social 
meetings  which  in  the  early  years  of  Plymouth 
Church  were  a  marked  feature  of  its  life,  and  at  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  speak  for  ten  minutes  or  so,  in 
his  attractive,  humorous,  and  kindly  way,  doubtless 
helped  to  mold  the  Plymouth  congregation  into  its 
remarkable  unity  of  spirit,  although  after  a  time  he 
deemed  it  wiser  to  let  his  people  choose  by  natural 
affiliation  their  own  familiar  companionships.  He 
believed  that  the  brotherly  spirit  pervading  a  con- 
gregation was  essential  to  those  higher  manifesta- 
tions of  spiritual  interest  and  vitality  for  which  he 
prayed  and   labored.     Revivals  sprang  up  and  con- 


138  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

tinued,  sometimes  for  years.  "Probably  the  most 
sacred  season  in  the  history  of  this  room  (the  lecture- 
room)  was  the  season  of  1857  and  1858.  I  well 
remember  the  stormy,  the  snowy  Monday  morning  in 
February  when  a  few  of  us,  twenty-eight  in  number, 
I  think,  met  for  a  first  morning  prayer-meeting. 
Religious  interest  had  been  deepening  throughout 
the  country,  it  had  been  deepening  in  Plymouth 
Church;  but  to  all  requests  to  appoint  a  protracted 
meeting,  Mr.  Beecher  had  but  one  reply.  He  disa- 
vowed his  belief  in  'got-up'  revivals,  saying  that  if 
the  spirit  of  revival  was  in  the  Church  the  revival 
itself  would  follow.  For  two  weeks  this  morning 
meeting  was  continued,  without  Mr.  Beecher's  pres- 
ence. To  some  he  even  seemed  to  discourage  the 
work  by  refusing  to  participate  in  it,  but  his  purpose 
was  to  put  the  responsibility  upon  his  people,  and  he 
achieved  his  object.  Reluctantly  but  gradually  they 
took  it,  the  meetings  steadily  increased  in  size  and 
interest;  and  at  last,  at  the  close  of  a  Sabbath  evening 
inquiry  meeting,  he  announced  his  purpose  to  be 
present  at  the  next  morning  prayer-meeting.  This 
was  March  nth,  and  from  that  day  until  July  3d, 
those  morning  meetings  were  kept  up  I  believe  with- 
out a  break,  and  almost  without  a  single  absence  of 
the  pastor.  They  who  attended  these  meetings  will 
never  forget  them;  their  freedom  of  intercourse,  their 
social  warmth,  their  spiritual  tenderness."1 

In  July,  1850,  he  made  his  first  voyage  to  England. 
His  strong  constitution  had  been  somewhat  weakened 
by  frequent  attacks  of  sickness.     During  his  absence 


1  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  pp.  273-274. 


THE    PRIVATE    AND    PEACEFUL   MINISTRY.  139 

the  pulpit  of  Plymouth  Church  was  supplied  by  his 
brother  Rev.  Charles  Beecher.  Henry  Ward  landed 
at  Liverpool  on  July  30,  1850,  and  a  new  and  import- 
ant development  of  his  large  and  impressible  nature 
was  then  begun.  The  sea  had  not  been  agreeable  to 
this  poor  sailor,  but  Old  England  filled  him  with 
delight.  Few  Americans  have  ever  visited  the  Old 
Home  with  so  intense  an  appreciation  of  many  aspects 
of  English  life  and  scenery  His  note-books  record 
in  briefest  fashion  his  observations  of  English  hedges, 
of  railroad  mile-posts,  of  the  peculiarities  of  railway 
construction,  of  the  facts  regarding  the  manufacture  of 
plated-ware  in  Birmingham,  and  of  many  other  things 
which  filled  his  memory  with  materials  for  illustra- 
tion. In  his  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching"  he  said: 
"When  I  was  in  Birmingham,  I  went  in  to  see  how 
they  manufacture  papier-macht,  and  I  saw  the  vast 
machinery  and  the  various  methods  by  which  it  was 
blocked  out  and  made.  I  watched  the  various  proc- 
esses from  room  to  room  until  I  came  to  the  last, 
where  is  given  the  finishing  touch,  for  final  polish. 
They  told  me  they  had  tried  everything  in  the  world 
for  polishing,  and  at  last  had  been  convinced  that 
there  was  nothing  like  the  human  hand.  There  was 
no  leather  or  other  substance  that  they  could  get  hold 
of,  that  had  such  power  to  polish  to  the  very  finest 
smoothness,  as  this  living  leather  in  its  vital  state — 
the  human  hand.  It  is  very  much  so  with  people. 
You  can  teach  them  from  the  pulpit  in  certain  large 
ways,  but  there  are  some  things  you  cannot  do  except 
by  putting  your  very  hand  on  them  and  working  them 
down."1 


1  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Second  Series,  p.  184. 


140  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

Not  only  was  his  memory  stored  with  facts  through 
observation,  but  he  found  in  England  that  which  fired 
his  imagination,  as  for  example  Warwick  Castle.  "  I 
was  wafted  backward  and  backward,  until  I  stood  on 
the  foundations  upon  which  Old  England  herself  was 
builded,  when  as  yet  there  was  none  of  her.  There, 
far  back  of  all  literature,  before  the  English  tongue 
itself  was  formed,  earlier  than  her  jurisprudence  and 
than  all  modern  civilization,  I  stood  in  imagination, 
and,  reversing  my  vision,  looked  down  into  a  far 
future  to  search  for  the  men  and  deeds  which  had 
been,  as  if  they  were  yet  to  be;  thus  making  a  proph- 
ecy of  history,  and  changing  memory  into  a  dreamy 
foresight.  .  .  .  Against  these  stones  on  which  I 
lay  my  hand  have  rung  the  sounds  of  battle.  Yonder 
on  these  very  grounds,  there  raged,  in  sight  of  men 
who  stand  where  I  do,  fiercest  and  deadliest  conflicts. 
All  this  ground  is  fed  on  blood."  l 

At  Stratford-on-Avon,  the  birthplace  and  home  of 
Shakespeare,  Mr.  Beecher  put  up  at  the  Red  Horse 
Inn,  and  while  there  he  passed  some  of  the  transfig- 
ured moments  of  his  life.  He  attended  Church  here, 
in  the  building  where  Shakespeare  lies  buried,  and 
the  service,  in  the  forms  which  had  been  dear  to  his 
mother's  heart,  made  a  wonderful  impression  on  his 
sensitive  mind.  "I  had  never  heard  any  part  of  the 
supplication,  a  direct  prayer,  chanted  by  a  choir,  and 
it  seemed  as  though  I  heard  not  with  my  ear  but 
with  my  soul.  I  was  dissolved,  my  whole  being 
seemed  to  be  like  an  incense  wafted  gratefully  toward 
God.  The  Divine  Presence  rose  before  me  in  won- 
drous majesty,  but  of  ineffable  gentleness  and  good- 

1  "  Star  Papers,"  pp.  20-21. 


THE    PRIVATE    AND    PEACEFUL   MINISTRY.  141 

ness,  and  I  could  not  stay  away  from  more  familiar 
approach,  but  seemed  irresistibly  but  gently  drawn 
toward  God.  My  soul,  then  thou  didst  magnify  the 
Lord,  and  rejoice  in  the  God  of  thy  salvation  !  And 
then  came  to  my  mind  the  many  exultations  of  the 
Psalms  of  David,  and  never  before  were  the  expres- 
sions and  figures  so  noble  and  so  necessary  to  express 
what  I  felt.  I  had  risen,  it  seemed  to  me,  so  high  as 
to  be  where  David  was  when  his  soul  conceived  the 
things  which  he  wrote.  .  .  .  O  !  when  in  the 
prayers,  breathed  forth  in  strains  of  sweet,  simple, 
solemn  music,  the  love  of  Christ  was  recognized, 
how  I  longed  then  to  give  utterance  to  what  that  love 
seemed  to  me.  There  was  a  moment  in  which  the 
Heavens  seemed  open  to  me  and  I  saw  the  glory 
of  God  !  All  the  earth  seemed  to  me  a  storehouse 
of  images,  made  to  set  forth  the  Redeemer,  and  I 
could  scarcely  be  stilled  from  crying  out. 
For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  went  forward  to  com- 
mune in  the  Episcopal  Church.  Without  any  intent 
of  my  own,  but  because  from  my  seat  it  was  nearest, 
I  knelt  down  at  the  altar,  with  the  dust  of  Shake- 
speare beneath  my  feet.  I  thought  of  it  as  I  thought 
of  ten  thousand  other  things,  without  the  least 
disturbance  of  devotion.  It  seemed  as  if  I  stood 
upon  a  place  so  high  that,  like  one  looking  over  a 
wide  valley,  all  objects  conspired  to  make  but  one 
view.  I  thought  of  the  General  Assembly  and  Church 
of  the  First  Born,  of  my  mother  and  brother  and 
children  in  Heaven,  of  my  living  family  on  earth,  of 
you,  of  the  whole  Church  entrusted  to  my  hands — 
they  afar  off,  I  upon  the  banks  of  the  Avon."  * 

1  "  Star  Papers,"  pp.  30-31. 


142  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Oxford,  noblest  built  of  English  towns,  with  its 

"  Seclusions  ivy-hushed,  and  pavements  sweet 
With  immemorial  lisp  of  musing  feet  " 

impressed  him  as  it  does  all  sensitive  minds.  He 
walked  with  solemn  reverence  among  the  alcoves 
and  through  the  halls  of  the  Bodleian  Library  "  as  if 
in  a  pyramid  of  embalmed  souls."  Arrived  in  Lon- 
don, he  had  the  usual  feelings  which  come  to  natures 
like  his,  workers  in  behalf  of  their  fellow  men,  when 
visiting  the  scenes  of  historic  renown,  a  sense  of 
insufficiency  for  his  own  life's  work.  "  I  have  every- 
where in  my  traveling — at  the  shrine  of  the  martyrs 
in  Oxford,  at  the  graves  of  Bunyan  and  Wesley  in 
London,  at  the  vault  in  which  Raleigh  was  for  twelve 
years  confined  in  the  Tower — asked  myself  whether 
I  could  have  done  and  endured  what  they  did,  and  as 
they  did  !  It  is  enough  to  make  one  tremble  for 
himself  to  have  such  a  heart-sounding  as  this  gives 
him.  I  cast  the  lead  for  the  depth  of  my  soul,  but  I 
have  little  reason  for  pride."  ' 

He  found  relief  from  these  moods  of  dis- 
couragement in  Art  and  in  Nature.  In  August  he 
went  over  to  Paris  and  noted  the  life  of  the  common 
people,  and  the  immense  and  startling  impressions 
made  upon  his  own  mind  by  the  prodigious  wealth 
and  beauty  of  the  art  galleries.  "  I  knew  that  I  had 
gradually  grown  fond  of  pictures  from  my  boyhood. 
I  had  felt  the  power  of  some  few.  But  nothing  had 
ever  come  up  to  a  certain  ideal  that  hovered  in  my 
mind,  and  I  supposed  I  was  not  fine  enough  to  appre- 

"'  Biography,"  pp.  345-346. 


THE    PRIVATE   AND   PEACEFUL   MINISTRY.  143 

ciate  with  any  discrimination  the  works  of  masters. 
To  find  myself  absolutely  intoxicated  ;  to  find  my 
system  so  much  affected  that  I  could  not  control  my 
nerves  ;  to  find  myself  trembling  and  laughing,  and 
weeping,  and  almost  hysterical,  and  that  in  spite  of 
my  shame  and  determination  to  behave  better — such 
a  power  of  these  galleries  over  me  I  had  not  expected. 
I  have  lived  for  two  days  in  fairyland,  wakened  out 
of  it  by  some  few  sights  which  I  have  mechanically 
visited,  more  for  the  sake  of  pleasing  friends  at 
home,  when  I  return,  than  for  a  present  pleasure  for 
myself,  but  relapsing  again  into  the  golden  vision."1 
He  described  a  state  of  trance,  of  happy  exaltation 
when  he  almost  seemed  to  himself  to  float  out  of  his 
body,  that  came  to  him  while  gazing  at  these  master- 
pieces. "  The  subjects  of  many  of  the  works — suffering, 
heroic  resistance,  angels,  Arcadian  scenes,  especially 
the  scenes  of  Christ's  life  and  death — seemed  not 
unfitting  accompaniment  to  my  mind  and  suggested 
to  me,  in  a  glorious  vision,  the  drawing  near  of  the 
redeemed  souls  to  the  precincts  of  Heaven  !  O  ! 
with  what  an  outburst  of  soul  did  I  implore  Christ 
to  wash  me,  and  all  whom  I  loved,  in  His  precious 
blood,  that  we  might  not  fail  of  entering  the  glorious 
city  whose  builder  and  maker  is  God  !  All  my  sins 
seemed  not  only  sins  but  great  deformities.  They 
seemed  not  merely  affronts  against  God  but  insults 
to  my  own  nature  !  My  soul  snuffed  at  them  and 
trod  them  down  as  the  mire  in  the  street.  Then, 
holy  and  loving  thoughts  toward  God  or  toward  man 
seemed  to  me  to  be  as  beautiful  as  those  fleecy  islets 


1  "  Siar  Papers,"  p.  57. 


144  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

along  the  West  at  sunset,  crowned  with  glory  ;  and 
the  gentler  aspirations  for  goodness  and  nobleness 
and  knowledge  seemed  to  me  like  silver  mists  through 
which  the  morning  is  striking,  wafting  them  gently 
and  in  wreaths  and  films  heavenward.  Great  deeds, 
heroism  for  worthy  objects,  for  God,  or  for  one's 
fellows,  or  for  one's  own  purity,  seem  not  only  natu- 
ral but  as  things  without  which  a  soul  could  not 
live."  ' 

Such  emotions  were  fatiguing  and  some  would 
say  almost  morbid,  but  they  are  a  key  to  the  magnifi- 
cent possibilities  of  eloquence  on  religious  themes 
which  he  afterwards  and  often  illustrated,  and 
perhaps  they  are  also  a  key  to  the  almost  reck- 
less heroism  of  self-sacrifice  which,  disregarding 
the  voice  of  selfish  prudence,  brought  him  into 
some  of  his  most  terrible  sorrows.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  remember  one  habit  of  his,  maintained 
in  Paris,  which  is  quite  in  contrast  with  the  custom 
of  many  of  his  fellow  countrymen  who  travel  abroad. 
Writing  to  his  daughter  in  1859  he  says:  "When  I 
was  in  Paris  I  acted  just  as  I  do  in  Brooklyn.  I  took 
no  more  liberties,  and  was  quite  as  observant  of  my 
home  proprieties.  And  I  must  say  that  I  do  not 
relish  the  idea  of  our  young  countrymen  going  to 
Europe  to  learn  how  to  get  rid  of  religious  habits. 
Foreign  travel  should  improve  our  manners,  increase 
our  information,  enlarge  our  experience  of  men, 
enrich  our  imagination,  cultivate  our  tastes,  but  not 
enervate  our  conscience."  3 


1 "  Star  Papers,"  p.  61.     2  "  Biography,"  p.  384. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

REVIVALS.       NATURE.       MUSIC. 

He  returned  to  America  restored  in  health,  and 
shortly  after  his  arrival  home  he  wrote  for  the  New 
York  Independent  a  letter  denouncing  what  he  deemed 
the  bigotry  and  intolerance  practised  upon  the 
Cunard  steamer.  "  No  one  was  allowed  to  read  the 
service  there  except  the  captain,  who,  having  been 
playing  cards  late  Saturday  night,  and  being  addicted 
to  the  sailor  habit  of  profanity,  was  not  considered 
fit  for  the  office."  ' 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  born  fighter  for  what  he  deemed 
truth  and  liberty.  His  articles  in  the  New  York 
Independe?it  from  this  time  began  to  attract  wide 
attention,  and  in  truth  many  of  these  Star  papers  are 
as  brimful  of  genius,  witty  observations  on  a  great 
variety  of  themes,  and  of  helpful  suggestions  as  any- 
thing which  he  ever  wrote.  He  defended  the  Jenny 
Lind  managers  for  the  high  price  of  tickets  de- 
manded for  her  famous  concerts,  and  said:  "Jenny 
Lind,  if  we  understand  her  desires  and  aims,  is 
employing  a  resplendent  musical  genius  in  the  mo^t 
noble  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel.     In 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  350. 
IO 


146  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

her  we  behold  a  spectacle  of  eminent  genius  employ- 
ing its  magic  power  in  the  elevation  of  the  human 
race.  If  men  would  spare  from  the  disgusting  weed 
and  poisonous  liquors  one-half  of  what  they  spend 
every  month,  there  are  few  so  poor  as  not  to  be  able 
to  hear  Jenny  Lind."  ' 

He  gave  a  cordial  welcome  to  Kossuth,  and  for 
weeks  entertained  in  his  own  house  Kossuth's  chief 
of  staff  with  his  wife.  In  1852  his  family  was  enlarged 
by  the  birth  of  twin  sons. 

The  Church  entered  upon  its  work  that  year  without 
debt,  and  Mr.  Beecher  made  an  earnest  effort  to  secure 
a  spiritual  prosperity  equally  ample  with  that  tem- 
poral prosperity  that  his  Church  enjoyed.  This 
earnest  effort  was  eminently  successful.  The  great 
revival  in  Plymouth  Church  occurred  in  1858,  but 
others  preceded  it,  and  the  methods  by  which  he 
labored  for  these  periods  of  moral  quickening  appear 
to  have  been  definitely  fixed  in  his  mind  from  the 
beginning  of  his  great  pastorate. 

No  part  of  his  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching  "  is 
more  vivid  and  vital  with  his  deepest  convictions  than 
the  chapters  on  the  Philosophy  of  Revivals,  Revivals 
Subject  to  Law,  and  the  Conduct  of  Revivals.  The 
great  popular  uprising  of  the  Jews  in  the  rebuilding 
of  their  temple,  the  three  great  annual  visits  of  the 
whole  Jewish  male  population  to  Jerusalem,  he  held 
were  nothing  more  than  protracted  meetings.  He 
regarded  Christ's  Galilean  life  and  ministry  as  only  a 
state  of  religious  revival.  He  believed  that  revivals 
have  a  large  place  in  the  modern  Church.     "  These 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  351. 


REVIVALS.       NATURE.       MUSIC.  147 

great  divine  freshets  "  he  likened  to  the  rains  upon 
the  mountains,  "which  filled  the  immediate  channels 
fuller  than  they  can  hold,"  overflow  their  banks,  and 
spread  fertility  on  every  side. 

He  believed  that  the  acquiescent,  the  frigid,  the 
torpid  condition  of  the  human  faculties  needed  to  be 
stirred  and  fired  that  they  might  have  their  best 
development.  The  regular  institutions  of  the  Church 
are  inadequate  to  produce  these  results  in  whole  com- 
munities. "  The  Church  has  not  been  broad  enough 
to  spread  over  the  whole  population  and  brood  it." 
Since  so  large  a  proportion  are  outside  of  the  Churches, 
he  believed  that  these  revival  efforts  were  indispen- 
sably necessary  if  the  Gospel  is  to  be  preached  to  all 
men.  The  Churches  themselves  need  reviving  to 
counteract  the  formalism  begotten  by  regularity  and 
organization.  Life  is  better  than  death,  religious 
excitation  is  wholesome  and  not  perilous.  Men  are 
not  afraid  of  excitement  in  politics  or  in  commerce; 
it  is  the  sign  of  vigorous  life.  We  are  not  in  danger  of 
too  much  or  too  continuous  excitement  in  spiritual 
directions. 

"  Do  not  the  sounds  of  life  drown  the  thunders  of 
eternity  in  men's  ears  ?  Are  there  not  ten  thousand 
boiling  cauldrons  of  passion  and  feeling  underneath 
them  ?  Is  not  every  great  interest  of  society  pulling 
upon  them — the  household,  the  store,  the  shop,  the 
office,  all  processes  of  business  and  of  civil  society  ? 
Are  not  men  wrecked  with  the  thousand  worldly 
things  that  are  tending  to  undermine  faith,  to  blind 
spiritual  vision  ?  And  is  it  not  a  great  grace  and 
mercy  when,  even  if  it  comes  with  imperfection — and 
what  man  is  without  it? — there  is  an  excitement  that 


148  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

lifts  men  out  of  the  slough,  lifts  them  out  of  all  their 
entanglements  ? " ' 

There  are  deceptions  and  spurious  conversions 
under  every  economy  and  method.  "Men  that 
attempt  to  come  into  the  Kingdom  of  God  head  first 
are  just  as  liable  to  go  wrong  as  those  that  go  heart 
first:  I  think  that  they  are  more  liable  to  go  wrong. 
The  regular  Church  is  to  a  revival  what  green- 
houses are  to  the  summer.  Greenhouses  do  very 
well;  they  make  heat;  they  have  their  own  stove  and 
stoker;  all  they  want  is  brought  into  their  little  space, 
and  when,  by  and  by,  the  robins  and  bluebirds  come, 
and  the  elms  begin  to  bud  and  the  maples  show  their 
tassels,  and  people  say  that  summer  is  abroad  in  the 
land,  the  old  gardener  walks  out,  and  says,  '  Look 
here,  I  don't  like  this  summer  !  There  are  no  toads 
in  my  house,  but  there  will  be  toads  abroad  now 
soon.  Snakes  don't  get  in  here,  this  is  safe,  but 
there  will  be  snakes  in  the  woods  if  summer  comes. 
It  won't  do  for  us  to  have  this  thing  all  over  the  land.' 
Summer,  if  it  does  bring  mosquitoes,  is  more  desirable 
than  are  greenhouses,  for  vegetation,  for  fruit,  or  for 
anything  else." 

High  feeling  results  in  clear  seeing.  Revivals 
raise  the  tone  of  Church  piety.  Mr.  Beecher  believed 
that  the  Divine  Spirit  was  not  capricious,  and  that 
revivals  are  under  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  Their 
conformableness  to  law  "  is  the  foundation  of  educa- 
tion and  knowledge  in  the  production  of  emotion,  or 
in  the  production  and  conduct  of  all  spiritual  proc- 
esses."    "  To  get   up  a  reformation  in  the  matter  of 


1  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  226. 


REVIVALS.      NATURE.      MUSIC.  I49 

gambling  or  drinking  is  looked  upon  as  normal  and 
right;  but  to  stir  men  up  in  behalf  of  the  whole 
extent  of  their  moral  character  and  life,  is  not 
that  normal  also  ?  Is  there  anything  ridiculous  in 
that?"1 

Mr.  Beecher  acted  on  the  theory  that  it  is  wise  and 
best  to  bring  to  bear  on  the  religious  sensibilities 
whatever  influences  are  wholesome.  He  believed 
that  beauty  may  be  made  of  constant  service  to 
religion.  He  believed  in  liturgies,  especially  the 
Congregational  Liturgy,  improved  as  he  strove  to 
improve  it  in  Plymouth  Church.  He  thought  the 
ordinary  services  of  non-liturgical  Churches  were 
usually  barren  from  the  want  of  common  sympathy. 
He  believed  it  to  be  the  office  of  the  minister  to 
develop  the  gifts  of  all  the  members  of  the  Church, 
to  inspire  and  drill  them  so  that  the  common  worship 
would  show  an  abundance  of  wholesome  feeling, 
because  those  who  joined  in  it  abounded  in  spiritual 
vitality. 

"  A  dead  Church  with  a  liturgy  on  top  is  like  a 
sand  desert  covered  with  artificial  bouquets.  It's 
bright  for  the  moment.  But  it  is  fictitious  and  fruit- 
less. There  are  no  roots  to  the  flowers.  There  is  no 
soil  for  the  roots.  The  utmost  that  a  liturgy  can  do 
upon  the  chilly  bosom  of  an  undeveloped,  untrained 
Church  is  to  cover  its  nakedness  with  a  faint  shadow 
of  what  they  fain  would  have,  but  cannot  get."2 

Mr.  Beecher  had  so  warm  a  feeling  toward  the  Epis- 
copal Church,  of  which   his  mother  was  a  member, 


1"  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  249. 
t  <<  New  Star  Papers,'   p.  259. 


150  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

that  what  he  has  written  about  liturgies  must  never 
be  taken  as  the  slightest  reflection  upon  Episcopalian 
forms. 

As  multitudes  remember,  it  was  early  the  custom  of 
Plymouth  Church  to  introduce  floral  decorations  as 
"the  signs  of  gladness,"  "offerings  of  joyful  hearts  to 
God,"  in  the  services  of  the  sanctuary.  This  was  in 
accord  with  some  of  Mr.  Beecher's  deepest  thoughts 
with  regard  to  the  uses  of  the  things  that  God  has 
made.  He  believed  that  mission  Churches  and  all 
others  might  well  be  decorated  with  a  few  flowers  to 
light  up  their  dreariness,  or  to  suggest,  even  in  the 
midst  of  man's  most  beautiful  handiwork,  the  nobler 
beauty  of  God's  workmanship.  In  this,  as  in  so  many 
other  things,  Plymouth  Church  was  a  pioneer.  How 
much  of  America's  intellectual  and  religious  eman- 
cipation and  enlightenment  is  due  to  the  brave,  broad- 
minded  servant  of  God,  unfettered  by  conventional- 
ism, who  was  determined  to  have  the  life  of  the 
Church  to  which  he  ministered,  conformed  to  his 
best  thought  and  highest  aspirations  ! 

Mr.  Beecher  gained  a  world-wide  celebrity  as  a  po- 
litical and  social  reformer;  he  was  marvelously 
sensitive  to  what  he  deemed  injustice.  But  he  was 
also  a  great  teacher  in  the  realm  of  the  beautiful.  He 
believed  that  he  owed  to  Ruskin  more  than  to  any 
other  modern  teacher  "  for  the  blessings  of  sight." 
"  Thousands  of  golden  hours  and  materials,  both  for 
self-enjoyment  and  the  instruction  of  others,  enough 
to  fill  up  our  whole  life,  we  owe  to  the  spirit  excited 
in  us  by  the  reading  of  Ruskin's  early  works.  The 
sky,  the  earth,  and  the  waters  are  no  longer  what 
they  were  to  us.     We  have  learned  a  language  and 


REVIVALS.       NATURE.       MUSIC.  151 

come  to  a  sympathy  in  them  more  through  the 
instrumentality  of  Ruskin's  works  than  by  all  other 
instrumentalities  on  earth,  excepting,  always,  the 
nature  which  my  mother  gave  me— sainted  be  her 
name."  ' 

The  summers  of  1852  and  1853  he  spent  in  Salis- 
bury, Conn.,  listening  to  the  birds  and  crickets,  the 
grasshoppers  and  the  cattle.  Lying  on  the  grass  of  a 
tufted  knoll,  gazing  up  into  the  sky,  he  dreamed  and 
yearned  with  feelings  and  thoughts  commingled, 
while  tears  came  unbidden.  His  twin  boys  had 
died,  and  been  buried  in  one  grave,  and  from  this 
time  on  Mr.  Beecher's  heart  may  be  said  to  have 
been  a  fountain  of  sympathy. 

The  next  summer  he  spent  in  Lenox,  Mass., 
where  he  purchased  a  farm,  and  knew  the  pleasures 
and  solemnities  of  ownership  in  the  soil.  He  has 
recorded  his  feelings  in  the  presence  of  an  elm-tree 
standing  in  his  pasture.  It  seemed  to  him  that  there 
was  almost  a  sacrilege  "  in  the  very  thought  of  property 
in  such  a  creature  of  God  as  this  cathedral-topped 
tree!  Does  a  man  bare  his  head  in  some  old  church? 
So  did  I,  standing  in  the  shadow  of  this  regal  tree, 
and  looking  up  into  that  completed  glory  at  which 
three  hundred  years  had  been  at  work  with  noiseless 
fingers!  What  was  I  in  its  presence  but  a  grasshop- 
per ?  My  heart  said  :  'I  may  not  call  thee  property, 
and  that  property  mine  !  Thou  belongest  to  the  air. 
Thou  art  the  child  of  summer.  Thou  art  the  mighty 
temple  where  birds  praise  God.  Thou  belongest  to 
no    man's    hand,  but  to  all  men's  eyes  that  do  love 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  394. 


152  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

beauty,  and  that  have  learned    through   beauty  to 
behold  God!"'1 

Mr.  Beecher  had  very  liberal  ideas  in  regard  to  the 
highest  uses  of  a  farm.  "  The  chief  use  of  a  farm,  if 
it  be  well  selected  and  of  a  proper  soil,  is  to  lie  down 
upon.  Mine  is  an  excellent  farm  for  such  uses,  and  I 
thus  cultivate  it  every  day.  Large  crops  are  the  con- 
sequence, of  great  delight  and  fancies  more  than  the 
brain  can  hold.  My  industry  is  exemplary.  Though 
but  a  week  here,  I  have  lain  down  more  hours,  and  in 
more  places,  than  that  hard-working  brother  of  mine 
in  the  whole  year  that  he  has  dwelt  here.  Strange 
that  industrious  lying  down  should  come  so  natural 
to  me,  and  standing  up  and  lazing  about  after 
the  plow  or  behind  the  scythe  so  natural  to 
him!"2 

Thus  working  and  resting  the  years  went  by.  In 
1855,  the  hymn  book,  known  as  "The  Plymouth  Col- 
lection," the  pioneer  of  a  large  class  of  similar  books, 
was  published  by  him. 

Some  years  before  this  he  had  published  a  small 
book  called  "Temple  Melodies,"  the  music  of  which 
was  selected  by  Mr.  Jones,  the  conductor  of  the  music 
in  Plymouth  Church,  and  by  himself.  Though  Mr. 
Beecher  was  the  father  of  this  little  hymn  book,  the 
publishers,  the  Mason  Brothers,  of  New  York,  omitted 
from  it  any  mention  of  him,  being  unwilling  that  the 
name  of  an  "  accursed  Abolitionist  "  should  appear 
in  it. 

"  The  Plymouth  Collection,"  like  all  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
intellectual  children,  was  violently  attacked.     In  his 


1  "  Star  Papers,"  p.  280.     s  "  Star  Papers,"  p.  268. 


REVIVALS.      NATURE.       MUSIC.  1 53 

defense,  written  as  a  Star  paper  for  The  Independent, 
he  convicted  his  critics  of  great  ignorance  and  amazed 
some  of  his  friends  by  his  own  wide  knowledge.  In 
this  article  occur  some  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
characteristically  eloquent  sentences  that  ever  came 
from  his  pen. 

"  Hymns  are  the  exponents  of  the  inmost  piety  of 
the  Church.  They  are  crystalline  tears,  or  blossoms 
of  joy,  or  holy  prayers,  or  incarnated  raptures.  They 
are  the  jewels  which  the  Church  has  worn;  the  pearls, 
the  diamonds,  and  precious  stones  formed  into  amulets 
more  potent  against  sorrow  and  sadness  than  the 
most  famous  charms  of  wizard  or  magician.  And  he 
who  knows  the  way  hymns  flowed,  knows  where  the 
blood  of  piety  ran,  and  can  trace  its  veins  and  arteries 
to  the  very  heart." 

"  There  are  Crusaders'  Hymns,  that  rolled  forth 
their  truths  upon  the  Oriental  air,  while  a  thousand 
horses' hoofs  kept  time  below  and  ten  thousand  palm- 
leaves  whispered  and  kept  time  above!  Other  hymns, 
fulfilling  the  promise  of  God,  that  His  saints  should 
mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles,  have  borne  up  the 
sorrows,  the  desires,  and  the  aspirations  of  the  poor, 
the  oppressed  and  the  persecuted,  of  Huguenots,  of 
Covenanters,  and  of  Puritans,  and  winged  them  to  the 
bosom  of  God." 

"One  hymn  hath  opened  the  morning  in  ten  thou- 
sand families,  and  dear  children  with  sweet  voices  have 
charmed  the  evening  in  a  thousand  places  with  the 
utterance  of  another.  Nor  do  I  know  of  any  steps 
now  left  on  earth  by  which  one  may  so  soon  rise  above 
trouble  or  weariness  as  the  verses  of  a  hymn  and  the 
notes  of  a  tune.     And  if  the  angels  that  Jacob  saw 


154  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

sang  when  they  appeared,  then  I  know  that  the  ladder 
which  he  beheld  was  but  the  scale  of  divine  music  let 
down  from  heaven  to  earth." 

He  was  right  in  thinking  his  book  destined  to  inau- 
gurate a  new  era  in  Church  music.  He  himself  said  of 
it:  "  It  was  made  on  a  theory  of  my  own,  or  rather  it 
was  the  result  of  my  observation  and  experience.  I 
had  observed  what  hymns  appealed  to  the  imagination 
and  affection  of  the  people;  and  I  did  not  believe  that 
any  hymn  book  would  ever  be  popular  which  had  not 
in  it  hymns,  the  elements  of  which  appealed  to  these 
faculties.  I  had  observed,  also,  what  tunes  the  people 
loved.  I  had  observed  that  any  music,  however 
irregular  or  grotesque,  that  appealed  to  their  imagi- 
nation and  affection,  they  would  adopt  and  make  their 
own."  He  believed  that  music  was  one  of  the  most 
important  aids  to  the  highest  offices  of  the  preacher, 
and  regarded  it  as  an  agent,  "  in  affecting  not  so 
much  the  understanding  as  that  part  of  a  man's 
nature  which  the  sermon  leaves  comparatively 
barren." 

He  looked  upon  music  as  the  preacher's  prime- 
minister,  "  inciting  to  emotion  through  the  imagina- 
tion, through  the  taste,  through  the  feeling."  He 
spoke  very  intelligently  and  discriminatingly  in  his 
"  Lectures  on  Preaching  "  of  the  relations  of  music  to 
worship,  and  paid  his  loving  tribute  to  John  Zundel, 
who  for  many  years  was  the  organist  of  Plymouth 
Church,  of  whom  he  said:  "To  him  music  means 
worship  and  the  organ  means  religion."  He  said  of 
Zundel's  handling  of  the  organ:  "  It  has  brought  tears 
to  my  eyes  a  hundred  times;  I  have  gone  in  jaded  and 
unhearted,   and  have    been    caught  up  by   him    and 


REVIVALS.      NATURE.       MUSIC.  I55 

lifted  so  that  I  saw  the  flash  of  the  gates!  I  have 
been  comforted,  I  have  been  helped."1 

Perhaps  no  one  has  ever  spoken  more  sensibly 
about  the  qualities  of  different  organists  or  ridiculed 
more  effectively  the  "vast  number  of  persons  who 
play  without  reason,  without  heart,  without  soul,  and 
with  no  sort  of  religious  foundation."  The  work  of 
the  organ,  like  preaching  itself,  is  only  a  means  to  an 
end.  Not  many  are  inspired  with  the  conception 
that  they  are  the  servants  of  God  whose  office  it  is  to 
inspire  the  nobler  sentiments  of  men,  and  who  that 
heard  it  will  ever  forget  his  description  of  "  the  musical 
monkeys,  dancing  on  their  organ,  playing  up  and 
down,  rattling  all  sorts  of  waltzes,  with  a  long  leg 
stretched  out  here  and  there  to  make  it  sound  like 
Sunday  music  ? "  3 

He  believed  that  the  minister  should  know  enough 
to  be  the  bishop  of  the  organ  and  organist,  as  well  as 
of  the  congregation.  The  congregational  singing  of 
Plymouth  Church,  under  Mr.  Beecher's  leadership, 
ultimately  became  a  fine  art,  but  this  great  achieve- 
ment was  the  result  of  persistent  urging  and  inspira- 
tion on  his  part. 


1  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  123. 

2  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  125. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

CAUSES  OF    POPULARITY    AND    UNPOPULARITY. 

Mr.  Beecher's  phenomenal  genius  and  novel  meth- 
ods gained  him  a  wide  popularity.  Probably  no  Amer- 
ican of  our  century,  neither  Mr.  Blaine  nor  Phillips 
Brooks,  has  surpassed  him  in  magnetic  power,  the  fac- 
ulty of  drawing  and  holding  men,  "  the  art  Napoleon  " 
of  moving  and  blending  many  minds  into  one.  But  it 
should  be  noted  at  this  point  that  his  unpopularity 
was  even  wider  than  his  popularity.  He  had 
mingled  politics  with  religion,  he  had  championed 
the  Abolition  cause,  he  was  believed  to  be  an  inno- 
vator in  theology.  Dull  minds  could  not  understand 
him.  Those  wedded  to  conventional  methods  did 
not  like  him  nor  trust  him.  He  was  widely  misun- 
derstood. Multitudes  failed  to  catch  the  true  mean- 
ing of  his  speech  because  it  did  not  come  to  them 
in  familiar  forms.  He  introduced  a  new  phraseology 
into  his  discussion  of  the  doctrines,  he  discarded  all 
hackneyed  phrases,  and  probably  he  was  the  most 
misreported  man  of  his  generation. 

There  are  thousands  living  to-day  who  have  in 
their  minds  a  strong  prejudice  against  Mr.  Beecher, 
whose  chief  knowledge  of  him  has  come  from  gro- 
tesque passages  culled  from  his  sermons  by  newspa- 
per men  anxious  to  make  a  readable,  and  especially  a 
sensational  half  column,  in  the  next  morning's  jour- 


CAUSES  OF  POPULARITY  AND  UNPOPULARITY.         157 

nal.  Multitudes  of  his  friends  were  year  after  year 
shocked  by  these  garbled  sentences  and  sensational 
passages,  removed  out  of  all  connection  with  the 
serious  and  earnest  thoughts  of  his  discourses.  For 
many  years  "  what  Beecher  said  "  was  caught  up  by 
a  hundred  journals,  and  scattered  broadcast  over 
the  continent.  And  as  most  people,  unfortunately, 
confine  their  reading  to  the  daily  press,  very  many 
have  lived  and  died  with  an  utterly  erroneous  im- 
pression of  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Beecher's  ministry. 

In  1884  Mr.  Beecher  freed  his  mind  about  this 
thing  before  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Associa- 
tion of  Ministers  and  Churches.  He  did  not  decry 
the  usefulness  of  reporters,  but  ventured  to  suggest 
that  they  were  not  omniscient  in  theology  and  phi- 
losophy, and  were  not  usually  skillful  in  putting  the 
sense  of  a  discourse  into  a  reading  space  of  five  min- 
utes. "  For  more  than  twenty-five  years  there  is  not 
a  man  on  the  globe  who  has  been  reported  so  much 
as  I  have  been  in  my  private  meetings,  in  my  street 
conversation,  on  the  platform  at  public  meetings,  and 
steadily  in  the  pulpit;  a  great  many  times  admirably, 
and  sometimes  abominably.  This  has  been  going  on 
week  after  week  and  year  after  year.  Do  you  sup- 
pose I  could  follow  up  all  misstatements  and  rectify 
them?  .  .  .  A  man  might  run  around  like  a  kitten 
after  its  tail,  all  his  life,  if  he  were  going  around  ex- 
plaining all  reports  of  his  expressions  and  all  the 
things  he  had  written.  Let  them  go.  They  will  cor- 
rect themselves.  The  average  and  general  influence 
of  a  man's  teaching  will  be  more  mighty  than  any 
single  misconception,  or  misapprehension  through 
misconception." 


158  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

There  is  large  truth  in  this,  and  yet  Mr.  Beecher 
suffered  through  his  whole  life,  and  his  just  fame  has 
widely  suffered  since  his  death,  from  a  misunderstand- 
ing of  what  he  said  and  did,  through  inadequate  and 
misleading  reports.  A  friend  of  Mr.  Beecher  writes 
of  an  experience  which  occurred  at  the  Plankinton 
House,  Milwaukee.  "  In  the  afternoon  a  reporter 
called  and  wished  to  interview  Mr.  Beecher  upon  any 
subject  he  was  willing  to  discuss.  Mr.  Beecher  said 
that  he  had  just  had  his  dinner,  and  he  wished  the 
reporter  would  excuse  him,  that  he  might  have  his 
afternoon  nap,  and  added  :  '  Here  is  Blank  ;  you  talk 
with  him,  and  ask  all  the  questions  you  want  to  ;  he 
will  tell  you  all  about  myself  that  I  could  tell  you.' 
So  the  reporter  asked  me  several  questions  concern- 
ing Mr.  Beecher's  trip,  lectures,  plans,  etc.,  and  when 
he  was  through  I  asked  him  how  he  liked  this  sort  of 
business,  going  about  interviewing  people  and  asking 
them  questions.  He  said  he  didn't  like  it  very  well, 
but  that  he  did  not  do  it  all  the  year  ;  he  reported  for 
the  Milwaukee  Sentinel  in  the  winter,  and  in  the  sum- 
mer he  went  with  the  circus.  I  was  talking  with  Mr. 
Beecher  about  it  in  the  evening,  and  it  was  mentioned 
that  this  was  one  of  the  sort  of  men  who,  knowing 
nothing  about  theology  or  theological  points,  re- 
ported his  theological  discussions  and  sermons  for  the 
daily  press,  and  upon  whose  reports  he  was  judged 
by  his  fellow  clergymen." 

It  was  one  of  the  trials  and  misfortunes  of  a  man 
of  much  interest  to  so  many  people,  that  he  suffered 
so  greatly  in  an  age  of  enterprising,  audacious,  care- 
less, and  sometimes  reckless  and  unscrupulous  jour- 
nalism.    His   own    lack   of  verbal   memory,  though 


CAUSES  OF  POPULARITY  AND  UNPOPULARITY.         159 

doubtless  a  help  to  his  extemporaneous  abundance 
of  original  speech,  was  a  loss,  in  some  instances,  to 
accuracy  in  his  public  utterances,  and  his  gravest 
addresses  abounded  with  so  much  of  wit,  grotesque 
humor,  and  stinging  denunciation,  that  it  was  very- 
easy  to  compile  from  his  addresses  what  did  not  give 
a  fair  impression  of  the  general  tenor  of  his  speech. 

A  chief  occasion  for  Mr.  Beecher's  unpopularity 
with  the  fastidious  was  the  frequent  and  usually 
needless  shock  which  he  gave  "  to  their  conventional 
nerves."  He  was  a  defender  of  naturalness,  fitness, 
good  taste,  and  propriety  in  the  pulpit,  and  he  usually 
practiced  the  virtues  which  he  inculcated.  But  there 
are  those  to  whom  naturalness  in  the  pulpit  is  offen- 
sive. Beecher's  nature,  for  example,  had  so  much  of 
spontaneousness,  impulsive  enthusiasm,  overflowing 
wit  and  humor,  that  he  seemed  a  great  departure 
from  those  conventionalities  of  the  pulpit  which  are 
usually  pleasing  to  the  average  man. 

Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt,  in  his  reminiscences  of  Mr.  Beecher 
and  Plymouth  Church,  writes: 

"  The  services  were  cheerful,  earnest,  interesting, 
and  frequently  entertaining;  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
make  the  people  laugh  if  he  chose;  frequently  they 
broke  forth  in  applause.  In  speaking  once  of  the  use 
of  humor  to  influence  men,  he  said:  '  Every  bell  in 
my  belfry  shall  ring  to  help  influence  men.' 

"  One  Thanksgiving  Day  he  had  preached  one  of  his 
strong,  patriotic  sermons,  and  just  as  he  had  finished 
reading  the  hymn,  at  the  close  of  the  service,  and  sat 
down,  a  large  man  with  a  stentorian  voice,  in  the 
gallery,  rose  and  said:  '  Mr.  Beecher,  if  your  Thanks- 
giving dinner  is  as  good  as  your  sermon  has  been,  I 


l6o  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

would  like  to  be  invited  home  to  dine  with  you.' 
On  another  occasion  he  announced,  on  Sunday 
morning,  that  Anna  Dickinson  would  speak  at  his 
Church  on  the  following  Tuesday  evening;  he  said: 
1  The  Academy  of  Music  that  is  used  for  theatres  and 
operas,  and  for  every  sort  of  entertainment  for  which 
a  hall  can  be  used,  has  been  denied  this  woman,  and 
so  I  have  offered  her  Plymouth  Church,  where  she 
may  speak  upon  the  subject  of  liberty.'  Some  one  in 
the  congregation  sang  out:  'Mr.  Beecher,  you  are 
mistaken;  the  Academy  of  Music  was  not  denied  Miss 
Dickinson.'  Mr.  Beecher  said  quietly:  '  I  am  informed 
by  one  who  should  know,  that  I  am  mistaken,  and 
that  the  Academy  of  Music  was  not  denied  Miss 
Dickinson.'  Immediately  a  person  rose  and  said:  'Mr. 
Beecher,  you  are  right;  the  Academy  of  Music  was 
denied  Miss  Dickinson.'  Mr.  Beecher  quietly  re- 
marked: 'I  am  informed  by  one  who  should  know, 
that  I  am  right,  and  that  the  Academy  of  Music  was 
denied  Miss  Dickinson;  well,  brethren,  let  us  merge 
all  our  little  troubles  in  singing  the  four  hundred  and 
fiftieth   hymn.' 

"  I  recall  a  statement  that  was  frequently  made  with 
reference  to  Mr.  Beecher's  entering  the  pulpit  one 
warm  summer  morning,  and  wiping  the  perspiration 

from    his    forehead,  exclaiming:  '  It's  a  d d    hot 

day,'  stood  for  a  moment,  and  then  proceeded  to  say 
that,  as  he  was  coming  to  Church  that  morning,  he 
overheard  a  young  man  make  that  remark,  and  so  he 
would  take  occasion  to  preach  a  sermon  upon  the 
subject  of  profanity.  This  story  was  told  in  every 
newspaper  in  the  country.  Every  few  years  it  would 
be  brought  up  and   would  make  its  rounds  through 


CAUSES  OF  POPULARITY  AND  UNPOPULARITY.        l6l 

the  papers,  and  thousands  of  people  believed  that  it 
was  an  actual  occurrence.  Mr.  Beecher  contradicted 
it  over  his  own  signature  in  the  New  York  Independent, 
stating  that  it  was  the  last  time  he  would  ever  make 
a  contradiction  of  such  an  absurd  story." 

Then  Mr.  Beecher's  liberal  ideas  in  regard  to  other 
Churches  were  not  grateful  to  many  of  his  own 
denomination  and  he  put  so  much  more  emphasis 
upon  the  truth  of  Christianity  than  on  sectarian 
tenets  and  practices,  that  sectarians  could  never 
count  on  him  as  one  of  their  sort.  He  had  to  be 
contented  through  life  to  be  deemed  unorthodox  by 
multitudes  whom  he  loved  and  who  did  not  feel  so 
strongly  as  he  did  that  the  great  orthodoxy  was 
being  like  Christ  and  doing  His  will. 

These  years  which  we  have  considered  were  years 
of  growth  in  a  great  variety  of  directions.  It  is  not 
usually  known  that,  though  Mr.  Beecher  was  pre- 
eminently a  student  of  Nature  and  of  human  nature, 
he  was  always  a  great  reader.  Those  who  know  his 
public  speeches  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  he 
made  a  careful  study  of  the  constitutional  history  of 
America,  and  those  who  are  familiar  with  his  sermons 
will  gain  some  idea  of  the  variety  of  things  he  knew. 
Mr.  John  R.  Howard  writes  of  him:  "He  made  it  a 
point  to  follow  up  in  literature  as  well  as  in  practical 
research  every  topic  that  greatly  interested  him. 
Sometimes  it  was  the  general  history  of  art,  or  the 
special  development  of  architecture,  of  painting,  of 
sculpture,  of  engraving,  of  etching;  and  his  library 
showed  illustrations  of  all  those  splendid  lines  of 
thought  and  achievement;  and  it  was  not  upon  his 
book-shelves  and  walls  alone,  but  in  himself  that 
ii 


1 62  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

could  be  found  unusual  stores  of  knowledge.  Music 
and  organ-building;  soap  and  cosmetics;  pottery  and 
porcelains;  large  additions  to  his  already  extensive 
knowledge  of  flowers,  trees,  and  methods  of  cultiva- 
tion; general  literature,  history,  theology,  meta- 
physics, natural  science,  and  especially  the  whole 
line  of  philosophic  literature  which  tends  towards  the 
coordination  of  these  great  departments:  physiology, 
anatomy,  and  medicine,  and,  in  short,  a  large  array 
of  books  upon  topics  of  interest  to  all  humanity,  and, 
therefore,  not  foreign  to  him,  bore  witness  to  the 
incessant  labor  with  which  he  stored  his  growing 
mind." 


CHAPTER    XVI. 


THE    BATTLE    FOR    FREEDOM. 


The  slavery  question  was  the  most  tremendous 
and  vital  of  all  the  political  and  moral  problems 
which  the  American  people  ever  had  to  solve.  Now 
that  the  solution  has  come,  men  are  in  peril  of  for- 
getting its  significance  and  the  enormous  cost  of  its 
settlement.  Mr.  Beecher  was  drawn  into  political 
controversy  and  agitation  because  the  controversies 
of  his  time  involved  all  the  principles  of  humanity 
and  of  religion. 

Joseph  Cook  has  well  said  :  "His  was  not  a  sickly 
philanthropy,  based  upon  merely  political  considera- 
tions. It  was  a  religious  philanthropy.  His  tireless 
lectures  on  reform  were  secular  sermons.  This  was 
the  glory  of  his  anti-slavery  career,  that  it  sprang 
from  religious  motives.  This  was  what  made  him  so 
excoriate  all  crimes  against  the  dignity  of  the  human 
spirit,  whether  on  the  part  of  the  capitalist,  or  of 
the  slave-driver,  or  of  the  politicians  in  a  corrupt 
party.  All  was  to  be  brought  into  harmony  with 
Christ's  kingdom;  and  his  watchword  was  really  that 
of  our  best  reformers  to-day,  that  Christ  is  King,  and 
that  on  His  shoulder  is  laid  the  government  of  the 
world."  ' 


1  "  Current  Religious  Perils,"  p.  142. 


164  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Mr.  Beecher  should  become 
a  leader  in  the  agitation  which,  at  last,  emboldened 
Lincoln,  in  the  crisis  of  the  war,  to  write  freedom  on 
the  national  flag.  As  Mr.  Lowell  wrote  in  the  midst 
of  those  agitations:  "  It  is  not  partisanship,  it  is  not 
fanaticism,  that  has  forced  this  matter  of  anti-slavery 
upon  the  American  people;  it  is  the  spirit  of  Christi- 
anity, which  appeals  from  prejudices  and  predelic- 
tions  to  the  moral  consciousness  of  the  individual 
man;  that  spirit  elastic  as  air,  penetrative  as  heat, 
invulnerable  as  sunshine,  against  which  creed  after 
creed  and  institution  after  institution  have  measured 
their  strength  and  been  confounded."  ' 

It  was  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  which  created  and 
directed  the  anti-slavery  movement  in  America. 
That  Spirit  recognized  the  absolute  humanity  of  the 
negro  slave,  and  taught  the  great  apostles  of  free- 
dom that  a  soul  created  in  the  image  of  God  and 
bought  by  the  blood-drops  of  Calvary,  cannot  rightly 
be  treated  as  merchandise.  The  cause  in  which  Mr. 
Beecher  with  his  whole  soul  was  enlisted,  was  a 
Christian  cause  undertaken  by  Christian  men,  most 
of  them  orthodox  Christian  men,  as  Garrison  him- 
self was  at  the  start.  The  first  appeal  of  the  first 
anti-slavery  society  was  written  by  Moses  Thatcher, 
afterwards  a  Presbyterian  minister.  The  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society  had  for  its  first  presiding  officer 
the  Rev.  Beriah  Green.  Its  "  Declaration  of  Senti- 
ments" planted  itself  on  "the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  the  truths  of  the  divine  revelation,  as 
upon    everlasting   rock."     William    Jay,    who    wrote 


1  "  Lowell's  Prose  Works,"  Vol.  5,  p.  15. 


THE  BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  165 

powerfully  for  emancipation,  was  a  devoted  Episco- 
palian, and  the  chief  men  who  fought  this  greatest 
of  moral  battles  from  the  hour  when  Garrison  in  an 
"  obscure  hole  "  in  Boston  sent  out  the  first  Liberator 
to  the  hour  when  Lincoln  wrote  his  proclamation, 
were,  with  few  exceptions,  men  who  bound  the  Bible 
to  their  hearts  as  the  Word  of  God  and  the  word  of 
humanity. 

But  the  Church  of  America  was  greatly  divided. 
While  the  moral  agitation  which  attacked  slavery 
was  of  Christian  origin,  the  Churches,  as  organized 
bodies,  were  largely  favorable  to  a  compromise  with 
the  slave-power.  "  The  great  publishing  societies 
that  were  sustained  by  the  contributions  of  the 
Churches"  were,  as  Mr.  Beecher  said,  "absolutely 
dumb.  Great  controversies  raged  around  about  the 
doors  of  the  Bible  Society,  of  the  Tract  Society,  and 
of  the  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions.  The 
managers  of  these  societies  resorted  to  every  shift 
except  that  of  sending  the  Gospel  to  the  slaves.  They 
would  not  send  the  Bible  to  the  South;  for,  they  said, 
'  it  is  a  punishable  offense  in  most  of  the  Southern 
States  to  teach  a  slave  to  read;  and  are  we  to  go  in 
the  face  of  this  State  legislation  and  send  the  Bible 
South  ?'  The  Tract  Society  said:  'We  are  set  up  to 
preach  the  Gospel,  not  to  meddle  with  political  and 
industrial  institutions.'  And  so  they  went  on  print- 
ing tracts  against  tobacco  and  its  abuses,  tracts 
against  dancing  and  its  abuses,  and  refusing  to  print 
a  tract  that  had  a  shadow  of  criticism  on  slavery!" 

"  What  claim,"  asked  Lowell,  "  has  slavery  to 
immunity  from  discussion?  We  are  told  that  dis- 
cussion is  dangerous.     Dangerous   to  what  ?     Truth 


l66  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

invites  it,  courts  the  point  of  Ithuriel's  spear — whose 
touch  can  but  reveal  more  clearly  the  grace  and 
grandeur  of  her  angelic  proportions.  The  advocates 
of  slavery  have  taken  refuge  in  the  last  covert  of 
desperate  sophism,  and  affirm  that  their  institution  is 
of  divine  ordination,  that  its  bases  are  laid  in  the 
nature  of  man.  Is  anything,  then,  of  God's  contriv- 
ing endangered  by  inquiry?  Was  it  the  system  of 
the  universe,  or  the  monks,  that  trembled  at  the 
telescope  of  Galileo  ?  Did  the  circulation  of  the 
firmament  stop  in  terror  because  Newton  laid  his 
daring  finger  on  its  pulse?"1 

The  unpopularity  of  the  anti-slavery  cause  was  in 
truth  one  chief  argument  for  Mr.  Beecher's  whole- 
souled  enlistment  in  it.  "  Jesus  knows,"  he  said, 
"that  for  His  sake  I  smote  with  the  sword  and  with 
the  spear,  not  because  I  loved  controversy,  but 
because  I  loved  truth  and  humanity;  and  because  I 
saw  weak  men  flinch,  and  because  I  saw  base  men 
truckle  and  bargain,  and  because  I  saw  the  cause  of 
Christ  was  likely  to  suffer,  and  I  will  fight  to  the  end." 2 

The  champion  reform  fighter  was  not  naturally  a 
belligerent  man,  but  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
rush  in  where  the  conflict  was  hottest.  Recalling  the 
state  of  things  at  the  beginning  of  his  Brooklyn 
ministry  he  said:  "When  I  came  here  you  could  get 
no  great  missionary  society,  Bible  society,  or  tract 
society  to  say  one  solitary  word  for  the  slave.  Such 
were  the  interests  of  the  mercantile  classes  of  the 
South  that  it  was  extremely   difficult  to  exert   there 


1,1  Lowell's  Prose  Works,"  Vol.  V.,  p.  13. 

8"  A  Summer  in  England  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  p.  3^ 


THE    BATTLE    FOR    FREEDOM.  ^6^ 

any  anti-slavery  influence.  .  .  .  Those  who  did 
not  live  then  can  have  no  conception  of  what  it  was 
to  form  a  Church  that  should  stand  right  out  in  the 
intense  light  of  the  time,  and  declare  for  universal 
liberty  and  for  the  right  of  the  slave  to  the  Bible,  and 
to  full  religious  freedom.  This  Church  grew  up  right 
against  a  flinty  way  of  bitterness  and  opposition."1 

One  of  the  chief  eras  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation 
opened  in  1850,  at  about  the  time  that  the  Plymouth 
congregation  entered  their  new  house  of  worship. 
Mr.  Beecher's  anti-slavery  career  belongs  to  the 
second  stage  of  the  great  fight,  when  moral  agitation 
became  blended  with  political  action.  From  1850  to 
his  death  he  was  a  great  public  force  in  American 
life,  easily  outranking  all  other  preachers  of  the  Gos- 
pel and  eclipsing  all  but  a  very  few  of  our  statesmen. 

As  a  reformer  he  thundered  louder  and  with  more 
reverberations  than  any  other  agitator,  unless  we 
make  the  single  exception  of  Wendell  Phillips. 
Beecher  kept  closer  to  the  average  feelings  and  con- 
victions of  the  people  than  did  Phillips.  The  Boston 
Abolitionist  was  a  strenuous  idealist,  a  leader  of  lead- 
ers. He  was  like  Milton,  of  whom  Coleridge  said 
that  he  was  so  far  ahead  of  his  age  that  he  seemed 
small,  though,  like  Milton,  he  looms  larger  and  larger 
with  the  passing  years.  Wendell  Phillips's  quench- 
less zeal  was  the  outcome  of  his  passion  for  right- 
eousness; Beecher's  flaming  enthusiasm  sprang  from 
his  glowing  love  to  humanity.  His  deep  sympathies 
with  his  fellow  men  were  outraged  by  slavery,  and 
his  right  to  speak  from  the  pulpit  on  this  theme  was 


1"  Biography,"  p.  221. 


1 68  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

to  him  a  sun  that  made  bright  his  path  to  the  advo- 
cacy of  all  other  moral  reforms.  He  is  the  chief 
champion  in  the  New  World  of  the  pulpit's  duty  to 
apply  Christianity  to  all  the  great  ethical  concerns  of 
business  and  society.  He  said:  "The  moment  a  man 
so  conducts  his  profession  that  it  touches  the  ques- 
tion of  right  and  wrong,  he  comes  into  my  sphere. 
There  I  stand;  and  I  put  God's  measure,  the  golden 
reed  of  the  sanctuary,  on  him  and  his  course;  and  I 
am  his  master,  if  I  be  a  true  seer  and  a  true  moral 
teacher." 

No  other  volume  of  addresses  is  better  worth  the 
careful  study  of  the  young  men  of  our  times  than  Mr. 
Beecher's  speeches  on  Freedom,  Slavery,  and  the 
Civil  War.  They  have  not  the  vast  learning  of 
Sumner's  elaborate  orations,  nor  all  of  the  brilliancy 
and  pungency  of  Wendell  Phillips's  speeches,  but 
they  are  not  wanting  in  the  highest  qualities  of  time- 
liness, eloquence,  and  wisdom.  Their  light  is  equal 
to  their  heat,  and  their  heat  at  times  is  like  the  cen- 
tral fires  of  the  sun. 

Beecher  justly  holds  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of 
anti -slavery  reformers.  The  men  and  women,  who 
contributed  to  the  moral  education  of  the  Nation  in 
that  long  struggle,  did  not  all  walk  in  the  same  path. 
In  different  ways  and  far  different  degrees  they  con- 
tributed to  the  beneficent  result.  There  was  Ben- 
jamin Lundy,  the  Quaker  printer,  the  pioneer  even  of 
Garrison  ;  there  was  George  Thompson,  the  English 
orator,  whom  America  mobbed,  and  after  thirty  years, 
showered  with  national  honors. 

There  was  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  the  master 
who  inspired  many  that  chose  different  methods  from 


THL  BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  169 

his.  There  were  Edmund  Quincy,  the  Boston  patri- 
cian, and  James  G.  Birney,  the  Kentucky  slave- 
holder, who  freed  his  slaves  for  conscience's  sake. 
There  were  preachers  of  all  shades  of  opinion,  the 
illustrious  Channing;  Parker,  the  Jupiter  of  liberal- 
lism;  the  saintly  Samuel  J.  May;  his  cousin,  Samuel 
May  ;  Lucretia  Mott,  who  approached  so  nearly  the 
perfection  of  human  character,  and  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson,  preacher,  soldier,  and  scholar,  of 
whom  Lowell  said  :  "  He  comes  down  from  his  pulpit 
to  draw  on  his  jack-boots  and  thenceforth  rides,  in 
our  imagination,  alongside  of  John  Bunyan  and 
Bishop  Compton." 

There  was  Amos  A.  Phelps,  who  gave  perhaps  the 
best  definition  of  slavery  as  the  "  holding  of  a  human 
being  as  property  "  ;  there  was  George  B.  Cheever,  a 
grand  Puritan  of  the  seventeenth  century,  floated 
down  into  the  nineteenth  ;  there  was  Albert  Barnes 
who  said  :  "  There  is  no  power  out  of  the  Church 
that  could  sustain  slavery  an  hour  if  it  were  not  sus- 
tained in  it  ;"  there  was  Charles  B.  Storrs,  of  an  illus- 
trious family,  who  died  early  in  the  struggle  ;  there 
was  Leonard  Bacon,  of  New  Haven,  the  lion-hearted 
debater,  from  reading  one  of  whose  sermons  Abraham 
Lincoln  declared  that  he  derived  his  deeper  anti- 
slavery  convictions  ;  and  there  was  the  greatest  of 
modern  evangelists,  President  Charles  G.  Finney. 
Then  there  were  poets,  like  Whittier,  the  man  of 
peace,  to  whom  a  friendly  poet  sang  : 

"Yet  for  thy  brother's  sake, 
That  lay  in  bonds,  thou  blewst  a  blast  as  bold 
As  that  wherewith  the  heart  of  Roland  break, 
Far  heard  across  the  New  World  and  the  Old." 


170  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

There  was  James  Russell  Lowell,  who  early 
became  an  Abolitionist,  and  who,  both  in  splendid 
prose  and  trenchant  verse,  rendered  bravest  service 
to  the  slave.  There  was  John  Pierpont,  an  early 
champion  of  reform  ;  there  was  William  Cullen 
Bryant,  who,  later  on  in  the  conflict,  proved  that  he 
who  had  uttered  "  the  voices  of  the  hills,"  and  in 
whose  song  the  "  torrents  had  flashed  and  thun- 
dered," could  sing  of  "Freedom's  birthright,"  and 
breathe  courage  into  the  ranks  of  soldiers  on  the  bat- 
tlefields. There  was  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  "  that 
earthquake  scholar  of  Concord,"  as  Wendell  Phillips 
called  him,  "  whose  serene  word,  like  a  whisper 
among  the  avalanches,  topples  down  superstitions 
and  prejudices." 

There  were  lecturers  like  Theodore  G.  Weld,  Lucy 
Stone,  Henry  B.  Stanton,  Sarah  and  Angelina 
Grimke,  and  Mrs.  Abbie  Kelly  Foster,  who,  in  her 
later  years,  like  some  other  of  the  early  Abolition- 
ists, became  cranky,  and  even  mentally  unsound.  In 
the  anti-slavery  crusade  were  merchants  and  men  of 
wealth  like  Francis  Jackson,  Arthur  and  Lewis 
Tappan,  Henry  C.  Bowen,  Isaac  T.  Hopper  and 
Gerritt  Smith.  There  were  writers  like  Joshua 
Leavitt  and  Joseph  P.  Thompson,  of  The  Inde- 
pendent, Oliver  Johnson,  William  Jay,  Palfrey,  the 
historian  of  New  England,  Elizur  Wright,  Gree- 
ley, Lydia  Maria  Child,  and  above  all  the  author  of 
that  epoch-making  volume,  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin." 
There  were  political  anti-slavery  leaders,  like  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Lincoln,  Sumner,  Chase,  Owen 
Lovejoy,  Seward,  Hale,  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Joshua  R. 
Giddings,  George  William  Curtis.  John  A.  Andrew, 


THE  BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  171 

and  Henry  Wilson  ;  these  and  many  beside,  some  of 
whom  are,  as  John  Bright  said  of  the  early  Aboli- 
tionists, 

"  On  fame's  eternal  bead-roll  worthy  to  be  filed." 

Amid  this  mixed  and  illustrious  company,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  stands  in  a  place  of  peculiar  and  con- 
spicuous power.  He  did  not  belong  to  the  Abolition 
party,  but  was  in  touch  with  them.  He  was  not  a 
debater  and  law-maker  in  the  national  Senate  or  House 
of  Representatives,  but  quite  as  much  as  any  other 
man  he  molded  the  popular  sentiment  which  shapes 
legislation. 

In  reading  his  written  and  spoken  words  we  often 
feel  that  we  are  in  the  same  moral  atmosphere  that 
surrounded  Garrison  and  Phillips.  But  soon  there 
comes  a  sun-burst  of  genial  humor  and  Christian 
charity  which  contrasts  his  temper  with  that  of  those 
law-inspired  apostles  of  righteousness.  Sometimes, 
even  in  the  earlier  addresses,  we  find  appeals  to 
Christian  patriotism  loftier  in  spirit  than  Webster's 
most  eloquent  pleas  for  the  Union.  Unlike  the  lead- 
ing Abolitionists,  he  believed  with  Lincoln  and  Sum- 
ner, with  Chase  and  Seward,  that  the  Constitution, 
if  rightly  and  properly  administered,  would  circum- 
scribe the  domain  of  slavery,  stamp  it  as  sectional 
and  temporary,  and  doom  it  to  certain  death.  The 
Garrisonian  Abolitionists  may  claim,  however,  what 
the  end  showed  to  be  true,  that  the  Constitution 
needed  to  be  purged  and  amended  before  it  could 
rightly  be  deemed  a  thoroughly  anti-slavery  docu- 
ment. 

Cherishing  the  ballot-box  as  both  the  citadel  and 


172  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

weapon  of  liberty,  Beecher  labored,  not  only  to  make 
public  sentiment,  but  to  crystallize  it  into  political 
action.  Moreover,  working  within  the  Church,  while 
he  sympathized  in  part  with  Garrison  and  Phillips  in 
their  unsparing  denunciations  of  organized  Christian- 
ity, still  he  believed  that  there  was  enough  religion 
in  the  world,  "  in  the  Church  and  out  of  it,"  to  destroy 
slavery,  a  spirit  "which,  in  God's  own  time,  in  spite 
of  recreant  clergymen,  apostate  statesmen,  venal  poli- 
ticians, and  trafficking  shopmen,  shall  fall  upon  this 
vast  and  unmitigated  abomination  and  utterly  crush 
it.  But  my  earnest  desire,"  he  said,  "  is  that  slavery 
shall  be  destroyed  by  the  manifest  power  of  Chris- 
tianity. If  it  were  given  to  me  to  choose  whether  it 
should  be  destroyed  in  fifty  years  by  selfish  commer- 
cial influences,  or,  standing  for  seventy-five  years,  be 
then  the  spirit  and  trophy  of  Christ,  I  had  rather  let 
it  linger  twenty-five  years  more,  that  God  may  be 
honored,  and  not  Mammon,  in  the  destruction  of  it. 
So  do  I  hate  it  that  I  should  rejoice  in  its  extinction, 
even  did  the  devil  tread  it  out  as  he  first  kindled  it; 
but  how  much  rather  would  I  see  God  Almighty 
come  down  to  shake  the  earth  with  His  tread,  to 
tread  all  tyrannies  and  oppressions  small  as  the  dust 
of  the  highway,  and  to  take  unto  Himself  the  glory." 
These  words  taken  from  a  letter  to  the  New  York 
Tribune,  indicate  the  utterly  Christian  spirit  which,  as 
it  seemed  to  him,  should  be  carried  into  this  struggle. 
In  another  letter  to  the  same  paper  he  said:  "  I  would 
work  for  the  slave  for  his  own  sake,  but  I  am  sure 
that  I  would  work  ten  times  as  earnestly  forthe  slave 
for  Christ's  sake."  He  was  the  last  man  to  pluck  a 
single  leaf  from  the  brows  of  Garrison   and  Phillips, 


THE    BATTLE     FOR    FREEDOM.  1 73 

but  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  adopt  all  their 
methods,  though  he  applauded  the  righteousness  of 
their  cause.  "  There  was  odium  and  influence  enough 
arrayed  against  the  anti-slavery  movement,  under 
the  form  of  early  Abolitionism  to  have  sunk  ten  enter- 
prises which  depended  upon  men  for  existence.  But 
there  was  a  spirit  in  this  cause,  there  was  a  secret 
strength,  which  nerved  it,  and  it  lived  right  on,  and 
grew,  and  trampled  down  opposition,  and  came  forth 
victorious!  There  was  an  irresistibility  in  it  which 
made  it  superior  to  the  faults  of  its  friends  and  the 
deadly  hatred  of  its  enemies."  ' 

No  vivid  picture  of  his  career  is  possible  except 
when  drawn  on  the  background  of  the  moral  darkness 
which  had  shrouded  the  land.  Slavery  had  early  been 
fastened  on  the  American  coast.  In  the  century  before 
1776,  three  million  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
negroes  had  been  taken  by  Great  Britain  alone  from 
the  shores  of  Africa  for  the  various  colonies  of  the 
New  World.  A  quarter  of  a  million  of  these,  accord- 
ing to  Bancroft,  perished  in  the  horrors  of  the  Atlantic 
voyage.  Against  the  protest  of  many,  slavery  was 
introduced  into  the  forming  national  life  of  America. 
"  It's  against  the  Gospel,"  said  Governor  Oglethorpe 
of  Georgia.  "  The  selling  of  souls  is  a  dangerous 
merchandise,"  said  John  Eliot,  the  apostle  to  the 
Indians  of  Massachusetts. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  John  Wesley  and  John 
Woolman,  Hopkins,  and  the  younger  Edwards  had 
written  against  the  slave  system.  Abolition  societies, 
chiefly  of   Christian   men,  were  organized  with  such 

1  "  Biography," 


174  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

officers  as  Franklin,  Hamilton,  and  Jay.  Jefferson  had 
trembled  for  his  country,  remembering  "that  God  is 
just,"  and  that  in  a  conflict  between  freedom  and 
slavery,  "  God  has  no  attribute  which  could  take  part 
with  slaveholders."  Climate,  conscience,  and  the 
Gospel  had  combined  to  rid  the  Northern  States  of 
the  remnants  of  slavery.  Abolition  sentiment  was 
not  dead  at  the  South.  As  late  as  1818,  the  General 
Assembly  of  the  unbroken  Presbyterian  Church  de- 
clared slavery  "  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  law  of 
God,"  "  and  totally  irreconcilable  with  the  spirit  and 
principles  of  Jesus  Christ." 

But  three  fatal  compromises  had  gone  into  the 
Constitution  of  1787.  The  slaveholder,  while  retain- 
ing the  negro  as  a  chattel,  was  allowed  to  count  him 
as  three-fifths  of  a  man  and  voter,  thus  gaining  an 
important  advantage  in  national  legislation.  The 
slave-trade  was  legalized  in  the  year  1800,  and  the 
rendition  of  fugitives  from  bondage  was  made  a  part 
of  the  national  compact,  "  in  violation  of  the  divine 
law,"  as  Mr.  Seward  said  in  1848.  Then,  at  the  close 
of  the  last  century,  the  cotton-gin  was  invented, 
making  every  black  baby  worth  one  hundred  dollars. 
New  England  manufacturers  and  Northern  mer- 
chants were  bound  close  to  the  Southern  planters. 
The  era  of  political  good  feeling  and  of  wide  pros- 
perity had  dawned.  After  the  Missouri  Compromise 
of  1820,  John  Quincy  Adams  thought  slavery  so  in- 
trenched that  disunion  was  the  only  hope  of  the 
slave.  Apologies  for  slavery  were  rife  ;  consciences 
were  blinded;  nothing  must  be  done  to  disturb  the 
slave-masters  ;  such  disturbance  would  endanger  the 
Union.     Colonization    societies,  supported    by   good 


THE  BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  175 

and  great  men,  planned  to  send  the  negroes,  who  had 
been  stolen  from  Africa,  back  to  its  pestilence  and 
barbarism,  with  or  without  their  consent. 

Garrison  began  his  agitation  in  1831,  and  for  nearly 
twenty  years  the  nation  had  become  a  great  debating 
society,  with  slavery  as  the  exasperating  theme. 
Garrison  and  Phillips  not  only  championed  Aboli- 
tion, but  came  at  last  to  advocate  a  peaceable  separa- 
tion of  the  States,  as  best  for  the  slave,  freeing  the 
North  from  fatal  compromises.  Meanwhile  Webster 
was  teaching  a  large  portion  of  the  American  people 
to  love  the  Union,  and  in  his  great  debate  with  the 
South  Carolina  nullifiers  he  was  storing,  in  the  na- 
tional arsenal,  the  moral  and  intellectual  ammuni- 
tion which  was  finally  to  blaze  forth  from  a  million 
rifles  to  destroy  slavery  and  make  the  Union  per- 
petual. 

But  the  love  of  the  Union,  which  was  the  key  to  the 
public  life  of  such  men  as  Henry  Clay,  persuaded 
him,  and  most  of  the  great  statesmen  of  the  country, 
to  consent  to  compromises  which  might  put  off  the 
coming  conflict,  but  could  not  for  ever  avert  it.  The 
policy  of  maintaining  an  equilibrium  between  the 
free  and  slave  States  was  a  most  difficult  one.  The 
Mexican  War  had  added  largely  to  the  national 
domain  and  had  also  quickened  the  national  con- 
science and  fear  with  regard  to  slavery.  How  shall 
the  new  territory  be  organized  ?  Shall  new  free 
States  be  permitted  to  disturb  the  equilibrium  ? 

Henry  Clay,  on  the  29th  of  January,  1850,  intro- 
duced into  the  Senate  his  famous  compromise 
measures,  which  were  to  secure  the  final  and  perfect 
adjustment  of  the  slavery  question.     "  His  object  was 


I76  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

to  save  the  Union,  and  he  reasoned  thus :  The  Union 
is  threatened  by  the  disunion  spirit  growing  up  in 
the  South.  That  disunion  spirit  springs  from  an 
apprehension  that  slavery  is  not  safe  in  the  Union. 
The  disunion  spirit  must  be  disarmed  by  conces- 
sions calculated  to  quiet  that  apprehension.  These 
concessions  must  be  such  as  not  to  alarm  the 
North."1 

The  perfect  settlement,  which  he  hoped  to  patch 
up,  provided  that  California  should  be  speedily 
admitted  as  a  free  State,  that  New  Mexico  and  Utah 
should  be  organized  as  territories  without  any  restric- 
tion in  regard  to  slavery,  that  Texas  should  receive 
money  for  the  loss  of  New  Mexican  territory  which 
she  claimed,  that  slavery  was  not  to  be  abolished  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  without  the  consent  of  Mary- 
land, that  the  slave-trade  in  the  District  should  be 
prohibited,  that  a  more  effective  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
should  be  passed  and  that  Congress  had  no  power  to 
prevent  and  hinder  the  trade  in  slaves  between  the 
slave-holding  States. 

Thus  was  the  irrepressible  conflict  to  be  repressed. 
"We  Americans,"  said  Mr.  Lowell,  "  are  very  fond  of 
this  glue  of  compromise.  Like  so  many  quack 
cements,  it  is  advertised  to  make  the  mended  parts 
of  the  vessel  stronger  than  those  which  have  never 
been  broken,  but,  like  them,  it  will  not  stand  hot 
water."  The  great  conflict  in  America  could  be 
settled  only  when  settled  right. 

Henry  Clay   was   a    patriot    and,  though  a   slave- 


1,1  Life  of  Henry  Clay,"  by   Carl   Schurz,    Vol.    II.,  pp.  529, 


THE  BATTLE  FOR  FREEDOM.  177 

holder,  was  a  lover  of  freedom.  He  did  not  believe 
that  slavery  was  a  blessing.  "  If  it  were,"  he  said 
"  the  principle  on  which  it  is  maintained  would  require 
that  one  portion  of  the  white  race  should  be  reduced 
to  bondage  to  serve  another  portion  of  the  same  race, 
when  black  subjects  of  slavery  could  not  be  obtained  ; 
and  that  in  Africa,  where  they  may  entertain  as  great 
preference  for  their  color  as  we  do  for  ours,  they 
would  be  justified  in  reducing  the  white  race  to 
slavery  in  order  to  secure  the  blessings  which  that 
state  is  said  to  diffuse."  But  Henry  Clay  never 
understood  clearly,  in  spite  of  his  preference  for  free- 
dom, how  utterly  impossible  it  was  for  liberty  and 
slavery  to  keep  house  together.  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Garrison,  Phillips,  Sumner,  Chase,  Lincoln,  and  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  perceived  that  the  Union  could  not 
endure  half  free  and  half  slave. 

But  the  chief  bulwark  of  slavery  was,  after  all,  the 
National  Constitution,  and  a  profound,  wise,  and  pa- 
triotic love  of  a  united  country.  The  South  had 
become  greatly  excited,  and  disunion  talk  was  rife  in 
the  capital  in  1850.  But  the  compromises  granted 
held  the  Southern  statesmen  back  from  making  the 
fatal  mistake  of  1861.  As  Mr.  Blaine  has  wisely  said  : 
"  In  the  passions  aroused  by  the  agitation  over  slav- 
ery, Southern  men  failed  to  see  (what  in  cooler 
moments  they  could  readily  perceive)  that  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Union  and  the  guarantees  of  the  Consti- 
tution were  the  shield  and  safeguard  of  the  South. 
The  long  contest  they  had  been  waging  with  the 
anti-slavery  men  of  the  free  States  had  blinded 
Southern  zealots  to  the  essential  strength  of  their  po- 
sition so  long  as  their  States  continued  to  be  members 
12 


I78  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  the  Federal  Union.  But  for  the  constant  presence 
of  national  power,  and  its  constant  exercise  under 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  the  South  would 
have  no  protection  against  the  anti-slavery  assaults 
of  the  civilized  world."  ' 


1,1  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  176. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

THE  GLUE  OF  COMPROMISE,  A  QUACK  CEMENT. 

Mr.  Beecher  became  a  great  factor  in  the  anti- 
slavery  discussion,  not  through  any  words"  spoken 
from  his  pulpit,  but  by  a  masterly  article  contributed 
in  1850  to  The  Independent.  This  religious  paper 
had  been  established  in  New  York  two  years  before, 
and  had  for  its  editors  men  of  such  conspicuous  force 
and  ability  as  Leonard  Bacon,  Richard  S.  Storrs,  Jr., 
and  Joseph  P.  Thompson.  But  Mr.  Beecher's  famous 
Star  paper,  "Shall  We  Compromise  ?  "  published  Feb- 
ruary 21,  1850,  was  a  national  event.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  dying  John  C.  Calhoun  had  it  read 
to  him  twice  on  his  sick  bed,  and  said:  "The  man 
who  says  that  is  right.  There  is  no  alternative.  It 
is  liberty  or  slavery." 

Beecher  showed  that  Clay's  compromise  bill,  liked 
neither  by  the  North  nor  the  South,  did  not  touch  the 
seat  of  the  disease.  It  failed  to  meet  the  real  issue. 
The  radical  and  age-long  feud  between  the  two  sys- 
tems and  the  two  policies  would  rage  until  one  or  the 
other  achieved  a  complete  victory.  "We  give  Mr.  Clay 
sincere  praise  for  desiring  peace.  We  think  it  worthy 
of  his  reputation  to  have  declared  that  he  would 
never  vote  for  the  extension  of  slavery.  If  his  com- 
promise had  taken  that  determination  as  its  starting- 
point,  he  would  have  come  nearer  to  our  ideas  of  the 


180  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

leader  which  our  times  and  our  difficulties  demand. 
It  is  no  sportive  joust  upon  which  our  nation  is  gaz- 
ing. The  shield  of  the  challenger  hangs  out  for  no 
blunted  lance.  Like  Ivanhoe,  we  should  have  been 
glad  had  Mr.  Clay  struck  the  shield  of  Bois-Gil- 
bert  with  the  sharp  lance-head,  importing  earnest 
battle.  One  straightforward  speech  against  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery,  based,  not  upon  political  reasons, 
but  on  the  great  principles  of  humanity  and  justice; 
one  glowing  appeal  to  the  whole  nation  to  take  the 
stand,  which  he  has  personally  taken,  never  to  vote  for 
the  extension  of  slavery  on  either  side  of  any  line;  this 
would  have  been  a  noble  statesmanship,  and  crowned 
the  last  years  of  the  revered  Sage  of  Ashland  with 
the  brightest  glory  of  his  life."1 

The  conflict  is  not  the  result  of  any  rashness  on 
either  side.  The  theory  of  democracy  or  the  theory 
of  aristocracy  must  rule.  The  society  which  honors 
labor  and  the  society  which  makes  it  disgraceful 
must  be  at  war.  The  North  represents  the  common 
weal.  "  There  cannot  be  a  commonwealth  of  slavery. 
It  is  class  weal  and  class  wealth.  The  South  hope- 
lessly divides  society,  puts  her  honors  on  one  side  of 
the  cleft."  2 

If  the  compromises  of  the  Constitution  were 
adopted  with  the  expectation  that  freedom  would 
eradicate  slavery,  it  is  possible  to  understand  the 
wisdom  of  the  intention  at  least.  But  if  these  com- 
promises were  designed  to  inclose  in  one  permanent 
Government  two   radically  oppugnent  theories  they 


'"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  168. 

3"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  169,  170. 


THE  GLUE  OF  COMPROMISE,  A  QUACK  CEMENT.   l8l 

were  evidences  of  extraordinary  folly.  "  We  should 
as  soon  look  for  an  agreement  by  which  Christ  and 
Belial  should  jointly  undertake  to  govern  this  world." 

Mr.  Beecher  made  it  plain  that  the  conflict  reached 
back  into  the  deeper  things  of  the  divine  moral  order 
and  Providence,  and  that  God's  truth  and  Spirit 
must  come  to  animate  the  National  Constitution 
before  any  peace  was  possible.  The  South  dis- 
covered that  slavery  could  not  live  and  stand  still; 
she  claimed  the  right  for  extension.  "  She  asked  the 
North  to  be  a  partner.  For  every  free  State  she 
demanded  one  State  for  slavery.  One  dark  orb  must 
be  swung  into  its  orbit  to  groan  and  travail  in  pain, 
for  every  new  orb  of  liberty  over  which  the  morning 
stars  shall  sing  for  joy."1 

He  denounced  the  fugitive  slave  clauses  in  Mr. 
Clay's  Compromise  Bill.  "  Not  even  the  Constitu- 
tion shall  make  me  unjust.  If  my  patriotic  sires 
confederated  in  my  behalf  that  I  should  maintain 
that  instrument,  so  I  will,  to  the  utmost  bounds  of 
right.  But  who  with  power,  which  even  God  denies 
to  Himself,  shall  by  compact  foreordain  me  to  the 
commission  of  inhumanity  and  injustice  ?  I  disown 
the  act.  I  repudiate  the  obligation.  Never  while  I 
have  breath  will  I  help  any  official  miscreant  in 
his  base  errand  of  recapturing  a  fellow  man  for 
bondage."2 

"  Ought  not  Christians,  by  all  the  means  in  their 
power,  to  preserve  the  Union  ?  Yes,  by  all  means 
that  are  right.     But,  dear  as  the  Union  is,  and  ought 


,"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  172. 
9  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  173. 


102  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

to  be,  whenever  it  comes  between  a  Christian  people 
and  their  Christian  integrity,  it  becomes  a  snare. 
The  very  value  of  our  Union  is  to  be  found  in  those 
principles  of  justice,  liberty,  and  humanity  which 
inspire  it.  But  if  by  any  infernal  juggle  these  princi- 
ples must  be  yielded  up  to  preserve  the  Union,  then  a 
corpse  only  will  be  left  in  our  arms,  deflowered,  life- 
less, worthless.  A  Union  perpetuated  by  giving  way 
to  injustice — a  Union  maintained  by  obedience  to 
the  desires  of  slavery — is  but  a  compact  of  violence. 
We  emphasize  these  things  because  the  long-continued 
cries  of  politicians  have  produced  among  sober 
Christian  men  an  unquestioned  and  undisturbed  con- 
viction that  no  evil  can  be  so  great  as  the  dissolution 
of  our  Union.  There  are  many  evils  infinitely 
greater.  The  loss  of  a  national  conscience  is  greater. 
The  loss  of  public  humanity  is  greater.  And  indiffer- 
ence to  the  condition  of  millions  of  miserable  crea- 
tures,whose  degradation,  vices,  ignorance,  and  animal- 
ism plead  with  our  conscience  in  their  behalf ;  this 
would  be  an  unspeakably  greater  evil.  So  long  as  we 
can  maintain  the  Union  on  terms  which  allow  us  to 
act  with  a  free  conscience,  with  humanity  unviolated, 
we  shall  count  no  sacrifice  too  dear  to  maintain  it. 
But  religion  and  humanity  are  a  price  too  dear  to  pay 
even  for  the  Union!  "  ' 

In  this  powerful  paper  Mr.  Beecher  proclaimed  that 
there  was  in  the  country  a  Conscience  Party,  augment- 
ing in  the  North,  some  day  to  be  organized  against 
the  national  inhumanity.  Speaking  for  that  party, 
he  said:  "  We  can    bear  much,  but  we   cannot    and 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  173-174. 


THE  GLUE  OF  COMPROMISE,  A  QUACK  CEMENT.   1 83 

will  not  bear  the  guilt  of  slavery.  We  regard  it 
as  epitomizing  every  offense  which  man  can  commit 
against  man.  It  takes  liberty  from  those  to  whom 
God  gave  it  as  the  right  of  all  rights.  It  forbids  all 
food,  either  for  the  understanding  or  the  heart.  It 
takes  all  honesty  from  the  conscience.  It  takes  its 
defense  from  virtue,  and  gives  all  authority  into  the 
hands  of  lustful  or  pecuniary  cupidity.  It  scorns  the 
family,  and  invades  it  whenever  desire  or  the  want 
of  money  prevail,  with  the  same  coolness  with  which 
a  drover  singles  out  a  heifer,  or  a  butcher  strikes 
down  a  bullock.  These  are  not  the  accidents  of 
slavery.     They  are  its  legitimate  fruits."1 

Compromises  of  the  Constitution,  made  on  the 
theory  that  slavery  is  to  die  out,  are  tolerable,  but 
compromises  made  on  the  theory  that  slavery  is 
national  and  perpetual  are  monstrosities.  We  most 
solemnly  declare,  by  our  belief  in  humanity,  by 
our  hopes  in  religion,  by  our  faith  in  Christ,  that  we 
will  cut  every  cord  of  oppression  whose  force  is 
derived  from  us.  And  if,  in  so  doing,  men  choose  to 
interpose  the  Constitution,  upon  their  heads  be  the 
blame.  Palsied  be  that  hand  and  blasted  those  lips 
which  shall  make  our  Constitution,  ordained  for 
Freedom,  the  instrument  of  bondage  and  cruelty."2 

He  announced  his  programme  of  open  hostility  to 
every  party  or  measure  friendly  to  the  interests  of 
slavery  and  made  the  prophecy  that  the  time  was  to 
come  "when  men  will  look  back  upon  this  system  as 
we  now  look  back  upon  the   dungeons  and  tribunals 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  174-175. 

2  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  175. 


184  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  the  Inquisition.  In  that  day,  many  a  man  will 
deny  his  parentage  and  forswear  the  ancestors  who 
either  forged  fetters  for  the  slave,  or  more  meanly 
blew  the  bellows  for  those  who  wrought  at  the  anvil 
of  oppression.  May  my  children  to  the  latest  genera- 
tion,  in  looking  back  to  my  example,  take  courage,  and 
strike  home  for  Liberty  and  Humanity."  ' 

He  announced  his  eternal  hostility  to  compromises 
which  seek  for  peace  rather  than  justice.  He  an- 
nounced his  purpose  to  abide  by  the  Union.  "  No 
vandal  outrage  shall  our  hands  commit.  We  shall 
honor  it  by  obedient  lives,  consecrate  it  by  our 
prayers,  purify  it  from  the  dross  of  injustice,  and  give 
to  it  such  foundations  of  Right  as  shall  hold  it  stead- 
fast amid  all  the  revolutionary  concussions  of  our 
day."  And  then  with  prophetic  insight  into  a  pos- 
sible civil  war  he  said:  "  If  there  be  those  who  cannot 
abide  with  the  Union  because  it  is  pure  and  religious, 
just  and  humane,  let  them  beware  of  that  tumultuous 
scene  into  which  they  purpose  to  leap.  .  .  .  But 
if  our  Charter  Oak  is  to  be  dismembered,  God  be 
thanked  that  its  roots  are  planted  in  the  soil  of  Free- 
dom. There  they  will  spread;  its  trunk  and  its 
mightiest  branches  will  abide.  The  sun  and  the  soil 
that  nourished  its  infancy  yet  remain  to  repair  what 
time  and  storms  may  mutilate.  Beneath  its  shadow 
the  poor  and  oppressed  shall  find  shelter."  * 

The  battle  in  the  United  States  Congress  over 
Clay's  Compromise  panacea  was  one  of  the  most 
memorable    in    American    annals.     Besides  Mr.  Clay 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  176. 
8  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  177. 


THE  GLUE  OF  COMPROMISE,  A  QUACK  CEMENT.     185 

there  were  in  the  Senate  at  that  time  Webster,  Cass, 
Benton,  Calhoun,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Jefferson 
Davis,  William  H.  Seward,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Han- 
nibal Hamlin,  John  P.  Hale,  James  M.  Mason,  Samuel 
Houston.  "  At  no  time  before  or  since  in  the  history  of 
the  Senate,"  wrote  Mr.  Blaine,  "has  its  membership 
been  so  illustrious,  its  weight  of  character  and  ability 
so  great.  The  period  marked  the  meeting  and  divid- 
ing line  between  two  generations  of  statesmen.  The 
eminent  men  who  had  succeeded  the  leaders  of  the 
Revolutionary  era  were  passing  away,  but  the  most 
brilliant  of  their  number  were  still  lingering,  unabated 
in  natural  force,  resplendent  in  personal  fame.  Their 
successors  in  public  responsibility,  if  not  their  equals 
in  public  regard  and  confidence,  were  already  upon 
the  stage  preparing  for,  and  destined  to  act  in,  the 
bloodiest  and  most  memorable  of  civil  struggles."  ' 

Mr.  Webster's  7th  of  March  speech  excited  intense 
hostility  among  the  anti-slavery  Whigs  of  the  North- 
ern States.  Many  old  friends  abandoned  him,  and 
the  Conscience  Party  of  the  North  was  aroused  to  a 
more  strenuous  activity  against  the  slave-power.  The 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill  became  law  and  was  put  into 
execution.  "  The  plantation  barons  were  sulky.  Their 
biped  '  property  '  had  mastered  enough  astronomy  to 
distinguish  the  North  Star,  and  had  mustered  enough 
manhood  to  run  for  it.  Meanwhile,  large  sections 
of  the  Free  States  covertly  cooperated  with  the  fugi- 
tives, and  openly  refused  to  return  them  to  the 
house  of  bondage.  The  scene  was  of  bewildering 
confusion — dizzy  as  a  dance  of  dervishes."  a 


1  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  p.  90. 

2  Carlos  Martyn's  "  Life  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  p.  224. 


l86  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Whittier  sang: 

The  evil  days  have  come, — the  poor 

Are  made  a  prey  ; 
Bar  up  the  hospitable  door, 
Put  out  the  firelights,  point  no  more 

The  wanderer's  way. 

For  Pity  now  is  crime ;  the  chain 

Which  binds  our  States 
Is  melted  at  her  hearth  in  twain, 
Is  rusted  by  her  tears'  soft  rain: 

Close  up  her  gates. 

Mr.  Beecher  was,  of  course,  in  rebellion  against  the 
atrocious  law  which  denied  trial  by  jury,  opportunity 
on  the  part  of  the  accused  to  summon  witnesses  in  his 
own  defense,  or  a  hearing  before  a  competent  judge. 
"  Dumb,  undefended,  his  destiny  at  the  mercy  of  any 
accuser,  and  of  a  commissioner  possibly  ignorant  and 
possibly  vicious,  the  accused  was  consigned  to  a  state 
worse  than  death."  ' 

An  underground  railroad,  designed  to  facilitate 
the  escape  of  fugitives  from  bondage,  was  actively 
manned  the  whole  distance  from  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  to  the  Canadian  border.  On  the  other  hand, 
colored  people  at  the  North  who  were  free  were  often 
kidnapped  and  hurried  into  Southern  slavery. 

Those  were  days  of  hot  feeling.  Mr.  Beecher,  in  a 
Star  paper  that  was  published  in  October,  1850,  said: 
"  If  in  God's  providence  fugitives  ask  bread  or 
shelter,  raiment  or  conveyance  from  us,  my  own 
children  shall  lack  bread  before  they;  my  own  flesh 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  239. 


THE  GLUE  OF  COMPROMISE,  A  QUACK  CEMENT.       187 

will  sting  with  cold  ere  they  shall  lack  raiment;  I 
will  both  shelter  them,  conceal  them,  or  speed  their 
flight,  and  while  they  are  under  my  shelter  or  my 
convoy  they  shall  be  to  me  as  my  own  flesh  and 
blood."  The  principle  of  his  action  is  thus  described: 
"  Every  citizen  must  obey  a  law  which  inflicts  injury 
upon  his  person,  estate,  and  civil  privilege,  until 
legally  redressed;  but  no  citizen  is  bound  to  obey  the 
law  which  commands  him  to  inflict  injury  upon  an- 
other.    We  must  endure,  but  never  commit  wrong." 

"  Our  policy  for  the  future  is  plain.  All  the  natural 
laws  of  God  are  warring  upon  slavery.  We  have  only 
to  let  the  process  go  on.  Let  slavery  alone.  Let  it 
go  to  seed.  Hold  it  to  its  own  natural  fruit.  Cause 
it  to  abide  by  itself.  Cut  off  every  branch  that  hangs 
beyond  the  wall,  every  root  that  spreads.  Shut  it  up  to 
itself  and  let  it  alone.  We  do  not  ask  to  interfere  with 
the  internal  policy  of  a  single  State  by  congressional 
enactments:  we  will  not  ask  to  take  one  guarantee 
from  the  institution;  we  only  ask  that  a  line  be  drawn 
about  it;  that  an  insuperable  bank  be  cast  up;  that 
it  be  fixed  and  for  ever  settled  that  slavery  must  find 
no  new  sources,  new  fields,  new  prerogatives,  but  that 
it  must  abide  in  its  place,  subject  to  all  legitimate 
changes  which  will  be  brought  upon  it  by  the  spirit 
of  a  nation  essentially  democratic,  by  schools  taught 
by  enlightened  men,  by  colleges  sending  annually 
into  every  profession  thousands  bred  to  justice  and 
hating  its  reverse,  by  Churches  preaching  a  Gospel 
that  has  always  heralded  civil  liberty,  by  manufac- 
tories which  always  thrive  best  when  the  masses  are 
free  and  refined,  and,  therefore,  have  their  wants 
multiplied  by  free  agriculture  and  free  commerce." 


l88  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Mr.  Beecher's  policy,  thus  outlined,  while  coming 
far  short  of  the  absolute  justice  demanded  by  the 
Abolitionists,  was  substantially  the  policy  which  the 
Republican  party  was  destined  to  inaugurate  and 
pursue.  The  difficulty  with  this  policy,  however,  was 
that  it  could  not  possibly  be  executed  without  arous- 
ing the  South  to  fiercer  hostilities.  By  its  very  nature 
slavery  must  expand  or  die.  Liberty  might,  as  Mr. 
Beecher  well  said,  if  left  alone,  be  always  a  match  for 
oppression,  but  under  the  circumstances  in  America 
the  South,  believing  in  slavery  and  taught  by  Cal- 
houn to  believe  also  in  secession,  was  steadily  making 
ready,  with  the  continued  growth  of  this  anti-slavery 
movement  in  the  North,  for  the  great  Civil  War. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 
a  light  in  America's  dark  age. 

Without  any  personal  bitterness,  Mr.  Beecher  con- 
tinued his  fearless  agitation.  One  result  of  it  was 
this,  that  personal  abuse  was  showered  upon  him 
without  stint.  As  the  years  went  by,  the  pro-slavery 
feeling  became  so  bitter  in  the  North  that  Mr.  Beecher 
"naturally  received  the  largest  share  of  abuse  from 
pro-slavery  journals,  and  incurred  the  lion's  part  of 
mercantile,  commercial,  and  social  displeasure." ' 
His  name  became  a  hated  name  ;  he  aroused  all  sorts 
of  opposition,  and  it  penetrated  all  grades  of  society, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  It  was  evident  that 
if  hatred  could  ever  find  a  weak  point  in  his  armor, 
if  ever  personal  scandal  should  attach  itself  to  his 
reputation,  there  would  be  wide  and  eager  credulity 
on  the  part  of  great  masses  of  his  own  countrymen. 
There  were  ecclesiastical  circles,  large  and  influential, 
where,  for  many  years,  his  name  was  mentioned  only 
to  be  abused.  He  was  lampooned  in  Harper 's  Weekly, 
which  printed  a  full-page  cartoon  of  him  declining  to 
administer  communion  to  Washington  because  the 
Father  of  his  Country  owned  slaves. 

In  the  time  of  the  struggle  for  freedom  in  Kansas, 


1  Howard's  "  Life  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  p.  243. 


I90  HENRY    WARD     BEECHEP 

Plymouth  Church  and  its  pastor  were  the  objects  of 
intense  malignity  on  the  part  of  the  roughs  in  New 
York  and  Brooklyn;  and  one  Sunday  evening,  in 
1856,  a  company  of  "  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort" 
entered  Plymouth  Church  for  the  purpose  of  cleaning 
out  the  accursed  Abolition  nest.  A  large  police  force, 
however,  were  present,  and  fifty  gentlemen,  including 
some  of  the  trustees  of  the  Church,  armed  themselves 
with  revolvers,  and  the  hostile  demonstration  was 
confined  to  the  muttering  of  curses  and  threats 
against  all  negro-worshipers  as  the  would-be  mob 
passed  into  the  street  again. 

A  fearless  and  powerful  speaker,  with  a  great 
Church  behind  him  sympathetic  with  his  utterances, 
dealing  vigorous  blows  at  every  form  of  iniquity, 
prejudice,  and  sluggish  conservatism,  Mr.  Beecher 
became  more  hated  than  any  other  of  the  anti- 
slavery  leaders.  Garrison  and  Phillips  would  have 
excited  perhaps  intenser  malignity,  but  they  were 
deemed  by  many  such  extremists  and  fanatics, 
and  their  following  was  so  much  smaller  and  their 
connection  with  the  Church  so  slender,  that  they 
escaped  some  of  the  bitter  contumely  which  smote 
the  popular  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church.  "  When- 
ever he  spoke,  the  size  of  the  church  or  hall  alone 
decided  the  number  of  hearers  Without  ambition, 
without  self-seeking,  with  a  simple,  earnest  desire  to 
do  his  work  as  God  revealed  it  to  him,  unrasped  by 
hatreds,  he  had  come  to  a  place  and  leadership  as 
broad  and  high  as  there  was  in  the  land."  '  In  daily 
augmenting  numbers  the  friends  of  freedom  gathered 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  245. 


A   LIGHT    IN    AMERICA  S   DARK   AGE.  191 

about  him.  The  service  which  he  rendered  the  great 
cause  cannot  easily  be  estimated,  and  has  never  been 
overestimated. 

One  of  the  bravest  services  which  he  rendered  was 
his  championship  of  the  right  of  free  speech  when 
Wendell  Phillips  was  prevented  by  the  mob  from 
uttering  his  convictions  in  New  York.  This  was  in 
May,  1850.  The  meetings  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  famous 
for  the  revival  services  which  had  been  held  in  it  by 
President  Charles  G.  Finney,  had  been  broken  up. 
Threats  had  preceded  the  coming  of  the  leading 
Abolitionists  to  this  anniversary.  "  The  air  was  full 
of  coming  violence,  of  which  a  truly  satanic  Scotch- 
man, James  Gordon  Bennett,  editor  of  the  New  York 
Herald,  was  the  prime  invoker." ' 

As  an  example  of  the  pro-slavery  newspaper  utter- 
ances of  that  time,  and  as  a  reminder  of  the  Dark 
Ages  of  American  history,  it  may  be  well  to  recall 
one  of  the  editorial  utterances  of  that  leading  New 
York  journal.  "  Never,  in  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  blasphemous  atheism^  was  there  more 
malevolence  and  unblushing  wickedness  avowed 
than  by  this  same  Garrison.  Indeed,  he  surpasses 
Robespierre  and  his  associates,  for  he  has  no  design 
of  building  up.     His  only  object  is  to  destroy."  3 

Captain  Rynders  and  his  ruffians  had  succeeded  in 
breaking  up  the  Abolitionists'  meeting  in  the  Taber- 
nacle before  Wendell  Phillips  could  speak.     They  had 


'"Life  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison  Told  by   His  Children,"  Vol. 
III.    p.  281. 

Life  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  Vol.  III.,  p.  283. 


192  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

also  been  shut  out  from  another  meeting-place.  But 
the  Graham  Institute  in  Brooklyn  was  secured  for 
Wendell  Phillips  by  a  friend,  William  A.  Hall,  who 
was  a  fervent  Abolitionist.  Mr.  Beecher  was  to  pray 
at  this  meeting.  A  committee  of  the  Institute,  how- 
ever, withdrew  the  invitation  on  account  of  the 
intense  excitement.  Was  free  discussion  ended  for 
Brooklyn  as  well  as  New  York  ?  Beecher  saved  the 
priceless  boon  for  his  own  city  and  helped  to  save  it 
for  the  Nation. 

Mr.  Henry  C.  Bowen  encouraged  him  to  offer  to 
Phillips  the  use  of  Plymouth  Church.  Beecher  went 
to  the  trustees,  man  by  man,  and  most  of  them  gladly 
gave  written  permission.  One  or  two  were  inclined 
to  withhold  it.  He  made  it  a  personal  matter,  how- 
ever, and  said:  "You  and  I  will  break  if  you  don't 
give  me  this  permission,"  and  they  signed.  The 
audience  in  attendance  was  immense,  and  detectives 
were  there  in  disguise  to  preserve  order.  "  I  was 
amazed,"  wrote  Mr.  Beecher  to  Oliver  Johnson,  "  at 
the  unagitated  agitator — so  calm,  so  fearless,  so  inci- 
sive— every  word  a  bull  .t.  I  never  heard  a  more 
effective  speech  than  Mr.  Phillips's  that  night.  He 
seemed  inspired,  and  played  with  his  audience  (turbu- 
lent, of  course),  as  Gulliver  might  with  the  Lillipu- 
tians. He  had  the  dignity  of  Pitt,  the  vigor  of  Fox, 
the  wit  of  Sheridan,  the  satire  of  Junius — and  a 
grace  and  music  all  his  own.  Then  for  the  first  time 
did  Plymouth  Church  catch  an  echo  of  those  match- 
less tones.     I  mean  it  shall  not  be  the  last  time."1 

Another    form    of    persecution,    in    these    days   of 


"  Life  of  Wendell  Phillips,"  by  Carlos  Martyn,  p.  231. 


A    LIGHT    IN    AMERICA  S    DARK    AGE  193 

slavery  madness  and  Union-saving  patriotism,  aimed 
to  "  boycott  "  Northern  merchants  and  manufacturers 
who  had  anti-slavery  tendencies.  A  black-list  of  New 
York  "  Abolition  "  merchants  was  made  out  by  a  com- 
mittee, and  the  South  was  told  to  withdraw  its 
patronage  from  these  destroyers  of  the  Union.  Mr. 
Henry  C.  Bowen  was  on  this  list,  and  Mr.  Beecher 
wrote  for  him  a  card  which  became  famous,  and  was 
a  battle-cry  for  independent  anti-slavery  business 
men:  "  My  goods  are  for  sale,  but  not  my  principles." 

Mr.  Beecher,  like  Curtis  and  Phillips,  earnestly 
fought  the  un-Christian  ostracism  which  banished 
negroes  from  churches,  lecture-halls,  theatres,  first- 
class  railway  cars,  gentlemen's  cabins,  and  the  white 
omnibuses  of  Fulton  Ferry.  Frederick  Douglass  was 
invited  by  him  to  Plymouth  Church,  and  to  a  seat  on 
the  platform  by  the  pastor.  Mr.  Beecher  would  not 
ride,  and  urged  his  friends  not  to  ride,  in  the  convey- 
ances placarded  with  the  words,  "Colored  people  not 
allowed  to  ride  in  this  omnibus."  In  a  fortnight's 
time  the  placards  were  gone. 

In  the  teeth  of  newspaper  threats  of  violence,  he 
championed  the  right  of  ministers  to  use  their  pul- 
pits as  batteries  against  slavery.  Fortifying  himself 
with  materials  gathered  from  Southern  sources,  he 
made  a  tremendous  onslaught,  showing,  from  South- 
ern testimony,  that  slaves  had  no  Bible  to  read,  no 
family  altar,  and  were  practically  heathen  in  a 
Christian  country.  "  It  is  vain  to  tell  us  that  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  slaves  are  Church  members. 
Does  that  save  women  from  the  lust  of  their  owners  ? 
Does  it  save  their  children  from  being  sold  ?  Does  it 
save  parents  from  separation?  In  the  shameless  pro- 
13 


194  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

cessions  every  week  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Gulf  are 
to  be  found  slaves  ordained  to  preach  the  Gospel, 
members  of  Churches,  baptized  children,  Sunday- 
school  scholars  carefully  catechized,  full  of  Gospel 
texts,  fat  and  plump  for  market.  What  is  religion 
worth  to  a  slave,  except  as  a  consolation  from  despair 
when  the  hand  that  breaks  to  him  the  bread  of  com- 
munion on  Sunday  takes  the  price  of  his  blood  and 
bones  on  Monday,  and  bids  him  godspeed  on  his  pil- 
grimage from  old  Virginia  tobacco  fields  to  the  cotton 
plantations  of  Alabama  ?  " 

He  showed  that  slavery  at  the  North  was  on  the 
basis  of  the  Hebrew  law,  while  slavery  at  the  South 
had  adopted  the  Roman  civil  law  as  the  basis  of  its 
code.  In  his  speech  before  the  American  and  Foreign 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  delivered  in  New  York  on  the 
6th  day  of  May,  1851,  he  discussed  the  relations  of 
slavery  to  Christianity  with  the  most  telling  and 
forceful  eloquence:  "  It  was  Lord  Brougham,  I  think, 
who  said  where  the  slave-trade  was  so  profitable  as  to 
pay  three  hundred  per  cent.,  not  all  the  navies  of  the 
globe  could  stop  it;  and  when  slavery  began  to  pay 
enormous  profits,  not  all  the  power  of  Christianity 
could  stop  it,  especially  when  ministers  of  the  Gospel 
were  found  to  step  in  and  baptize  it,  and  call  it 
Christian."  ! 

Discussing  the  Hebrew  bond  service  he  said,  that 
the  Hebrew  master  was  obliged  to  give  his  bondman 
a  religious  education.  "  Now  in  our  modern  system 
of  education  there  is  first  the  family,  and  then  the 
school,  and  the  magazine,  and  newspaper.     But  then 


l"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  179. 


A   LIGHT    IN  AMERICA  S   DARK   AGE.  1 95 

there  were  only  five  books,  called  the  Pentateuch, 
and  the  whole  system  of  education  was  comprised  in 
instruction  in  these  five  books;  and  in  these  every 
slave  must  be  educated  If  the  same  regulation  was 
carried  out  now,  it  would  require  the  Southern  slave- 
owner to  send  his  slave  to  the  academy,  and  then  put 
him  through  some  Northern  college,  and  graduate 
him,  before  he  tied  him  down  to  the  plough  or  hoe 
of  the  plantation.  That  was  the  Hebrew  idea  of 
slavery." ' 

Amid  much  hissing,  soon  drowned  by  cheers,  he 
said:  "  At  the  South  adultery  among  the  slaves  is  not 
held  to  be  a  reason  for  Church  discipline.  I  am  glad 
to  see  some  sense  of  shame  for  this.  The  public  con- 
science is  being  aroused.  Do  you  know  that  at  the 
South  in  marrying  slaves  the  minister  leaves  out  the 
words,  '  What  God  has  joined  together  let  no  man 
put  asunder  '  ?  It  must  be  left  out,  for  perhaps  in  a 
few  weeks  a  husband  will  be  separated  from  a  wife 
and  sent  to  another  plantation,  and  then  if  he  chooses 
he  can  take  another  wife,  and  if  he  is  a  member  of 
the  Church  it  does  not  hurt  his  standing,  and  then 
another  and  another,  till  perhaps  he  may  have  twenty 
wives,  and  still  his  letter  of  recommendation  from 
one  Church  to  another  is  good  as  ever."  A  voice — 
"  There  are  men  in  New  York  who  have  twenty  wives" 
"  I  am  sorry  for  them.  I  go  in  for  their  immediate 
emancipation." ■     [Great  cheering.] 

He  attacked  with  unsparing  vigor  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  among  other  reasons  because  it  tended  to 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  182. 

*"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  184,  185. 


196  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

make  an  impassable  gulf  between  the  North  and 
South,  because  of  its  inhumanity,  because  it  required 
what  was  essentially  wrong,  because  it  stirred  up  ill 
blood,  because  it  abridged  the  liberty  of  free  men, 
and  because  bad  laws  are  treason  to  good  govern- 
ment. He  replied  to  the  Biblical  argument  for  send- 
ing back  fugitive  slaves,  founded  on  the  return  of 
Onesimus  as  follows:  "There  are  two  ways  of  send- 
ing fugitives  back  into  slavery.  One  is  the  way  Paul 
sent  back  the  slave  Onesimus.  Now,  if  people  will 
adopt  that  way  I  will  not  object.  In  the  first  place, 
he  instructed  him  in  Christianity  and  led  him  to 
become  a  Christian;  then  he  wrote  a  letter  and  sent 
it  by  Onesimus  himself.     Now,  I  should  like  to  see 

Marshal ,  or  Marshal  somebody  else,  of  this  city, 

send  back  a  slave  in  this  way.  In  the  first  place  the 
Marshal  would  take  him  and  teach  him  the  cate- 
chism, and  pray  with  him,  and  convert  him  into 
brotherly  love;  then  the  slave  goes  of  his  own  free 
will  to  his  master  and  walks  into  the  house,  and  with 
his  broad,  black,  beaming  face,  says:  'How  d'ye  do, 
my  brother?  and  how  d'ye  do,  my  sister?'"1 

To  this  sort  of  argument  there  was  no  reply. 

A  well-known  illustration  of  his  faculty  of  instan- 
taneous repartee  claims  record  in  connection  with 
this  speech.  He  said:  "The  slave  is  made  just  good 
enough  to  be  a  good  slave  and  no  more.  It  is  a 
penitentiary  offense  to  teach  him."  Here  some  one 
in  the  corner  of  the  gallery  yelled  out:  "  It's  a 
lie!"  "Well,  whether  it's  a  penitentiary  offense  or 
not,  I    shall    not   argue  with    the    gentleman  in  the 


*  "  Biography,"  pp.  252,  253. 


a  light  in  America's  dark  age.  197 

corner  as  doubtless  he  has  been  there  and  ought  to 
know." 

In  closing  the  speech  he  made  a  magnificent  appeal 
to  conscience  as  the  safeguard  of  republican  institu- 
tions. "  Human  nature  is  a  poor  affair — man  is  but 
a  pithy,  porous,  flabby  substance,  till  you  put  con- 
science into  him;  and  as  for  building  a  republic  on 
men  who  do  not  hold  to  the  right  of  private  con- 
science, who  will  not  follow  their  own  consciences 
rather  than  that  of  any  priest  or  public,  you  might  as 
well  build  a  Custom  House  in  Wall  Street  on  a  foun- 
dation of  cotton- wool!  But  the  nation  that  regards 
conscience  more  than  anything  else,  above  all  customs 
and  all  laws,  is,  like  New  England,  with  its  granite 
hills,  immovable  and  invincible;  and  the  nation  that 
does  not  regard  conscience  is  a  mere  base  of  sand, 
and  quicksand,  too,  at  that.  If  you  want  this  country 
to  be  like  Turkey,  or  Egypt,  or  Algiers,  give  up  -the 
rights  of  private  conscience,  and  you  will  have  it  so 
soon  enough. 

Yes!  the  time  will  come  when,  on  reading  the 
epitaph  of  a  man,  which  records  that  here  lies  A.  B., 
author  of  a  learned  commentary  on  this  or  that  book, 
and  defender  of  the  doctrine  that  the  people  must 
give  up  their  consciences  to  magistrate  and  priest,  the 
people  will  lift  up  their  hands  in  astonishment  and 
exclaim:  '  God  have  mercy  on  his  soul.'  "  ' 

There  is  a  majestic  severity  in  this  speech,  spoken 
by  one  of  the  most  tender-hearted  and  sympathetic 
of  men.  He  tried  hard  to  calm  the  natural  expres- 
sion   of    his    indignation,    but    sometimes    it    burst 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  194. 


198  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

forth  in  thunderbolts  of  righteous  wrath.  "  It  is 
with  a  sense  of  shame  that  we  see  strong  words  for 
oppression  granted  an  unapologized  liberty  to  walk 
up  and  down  as  they  will;  while  he  who  speaks  for 
Freedom  must  rake  up  his  ardor  under  the  ashes  of 
a  tame  propriety,  and  stand  to  answer  for  want  of  a 
Gospel  spirit,  if  indignation  at  double  and  treble 
wrongs  do  sometimes  give  forth  a  bolt!  Neverthe- 
less, we  hope;  we  trust;  we  pray;  and  hoping,  trust- 
ing, and  praying,  we  soothe  ourselves  in  such  thoughts 
as  these:  '  From  this  shame,  too,  thou  shalt  go  forth, 
O  world!  God,  who,  unwearied  sitting  on  the  circle 
of  the  heavens,  hath  beheld  and  heard  the  groanings 
and  travailings  of  pain  until  now,  and  caused  Time 
to  destroy  them  one  by  one,  shall  ere  long  destroy 
thee,  thou  abhorred  and  thrice  damnable  oppression 
cancerously  eating  the  breast  of  Liberty.'  " 

"  And  if  in  this  day,  after  notable  examples  of 
heroic  men  in  heroic  ages,  when  life  itself  often  paid 
for  fidelity,  the  pulpit  is  to  be  mined  and  sapped  by 
insincere  friends  and  insidious  enemies,  and  learn  to 
mix  the  sordid  prudence  of  business  with  the  sonor- 
ous and  thrice  heroic  counsels  of  Christ,  then,  O  my 
soul,  be  not  thou  found  conspiring  with  this  league  of 
iniquity;  that  so,  when  in  that  august  day  of  retribu- 
tion God  shall  deal  punishment  in  flaming  measures 
to  all  hireling  and  coward  ministers,  thou  shalt  not  go 
down,  under  double-bolted  thunders,  lower  than  mis- 
creant Sodom  or  thrice  polluted  Gomorrah!  "  '  Have 
we  not  here  a  noble  and  unconscious  echo  of  some  of 
the  more  sonorous  passages  of  Milton's  prose  ? 


1  "  Biography"  p.  252. 


A   LIGHT    IN   AMERICA  S   DARK   AGE.  199 

Such  was  the  prevailing  disposition  among  large 
sections  of  the  Northern  people,  including  many- 
Northern  ministers,  to  do  the  will  of  the  slave-mas- 
ters, that  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  people  of  the 
North  were  deemed  cowards,  and  poltroons,  and  in- 
feriors. In  truth  this  opinion  was  not  uprooted  from 
the  Southern  mind  till  the  Union  armies  confronted 
the  slaveholders'  Confederacy.  Some  Northern  men 
went  further  than  the  South  in  their  apologies  for 
slavery.  James  Freeman  Clark  told  of  a  Boston 
friend  who,  in  the  home  of  the  Marshalls,  in  Ken- 
tucky, spoke  in  favor  of  "  the  institution."  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall, who  was  a  slave-owner,  replied  :  "  It  will  not 
do,  sir,  to  defend  slavery  in  this  family.  The  Mar- 
shalls and  the  Birneys  have  always  been  Abolition- 
ists ! "  Mr.  Beecher  owned  an  Episcopal  prayer 
book,  in  the  front  of  which  was  Ary  Scheffer's  pic- 
ture of  Christ  healing  and  blessing  the  unfortunate 
ones,  the  Christus  Consolator.  But  the  picture  of  a 
slave  among  the  other  suffering  ones,  lifting  his  hands 
in  appeal,  was  cut  out,  so  that  it  might  be  free  from 
any  taint  of  Abolitionism  ! 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

THE    IRREPRESSIBLE    CONFLICT    CONTINUES. 

The  great  excitements  of  1850  were  followed  by 
something  of  a  calm  in  the  succeeding  year,  a  calm 
to  be  disturbed  by  the  publication  of  Mrs.  Stowe's 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  People  were  settling  down 
into  a  sullen  and  stubborn  feeling  that  the  Union 
must  be  preserved  at  any  price.  The  peril  of  dissolu- 
tion had  apparently  been  lessened  by  the  passing  of  a 
series  of  bills  following  the  line  of  Clay's  compro- 
mise measures,  and  the  great  conservative  instincts 
of  the  country  were  banded  in  selfish  and  unholy 
alliance  against  any  further  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question.  Mobs  were  ready  to  put  down  free  speech; 
the  tone  of  the  press  was  virulent;  the  anti-slavery 
spirit  must  be  crushed  if  possible.  The  South,  how- 
ever, made  the  serious  mistake  of  pushing  her  right 
to   capture  and  return  fugitive  slaves. 

In  December,  1851,  Kossuth  came  to  America  as  the 
nation's  guest.  He  represented  European  liberty,  the 
struggle  of  the  Hungarian  people  against  military 
and  imperial  despotism.  With  his  marvelous  powers 
of  eloquent  speech  he  gained  an  enthusiastic  hearing 
and  reception  from  the  American  people.  By  Mr. 
Beecher's  invitation  he  spoke  in  Plymouth  Church 
and   ten   thousand  dollars   was  thus  secured   for  the 


THE    IRREPRESSIBLE    CONFLICT    CONTINUES.         201 

cause  of  Hungarian  freedom.  Mr.  Beecher  in  an  ef- 
fective Star  paper  showed  how  incongruous  it  was  for 
the  nation  to  honor  the  champion  of  Hungarian  lib- 
erty and  at  the  same  time  tread  down  oppressively 
the  more  helpless  slave  on  its  own  soil. 

In  1852,  Webster  and  Clay,  the  giants  of  the  struggle 
to  save  the  Union  by  moral  compromises,  passed 
away;  Charles  Sumner  entered  the  Senate,  a  man 
with  whom  compromise  on  the  slavery  question  was 
an  impossibility,  and  Franklin  Pierce  was  elected  to 
the  Presidency.  His  predecessor,  Millard  Fillmore, 
will  always  be  chiefly  remembered  as  the  signer  of 
the  infamous  Fugitive  Slave  Bill. 

"  Personally,  privately,  I  honor  Mr.  Fillmore  ;  but 
as  a  public  man  he  had  no  political  conscience.  .  .  . 
He  gave  up  Liberty  to  be  crucified  between  Southern 
slavery  and  Northern  mammon  ;  and  then  washed  his 
hands,  and  said,  '  I  am  innocent  of  the  blood  of  this 
just  person.'  " : 

Franklin  Pierce,  though  achieving  a  great  victory 
at  the  polls,  is  likely  to  be  pleasantly  remembered 
only  as  the  friend  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne. 

The  Whigs  and  Democrats  had  both  agreed  to  ac- 
cept the  Compromise  Measures  as  the  final  settle- 
ment of  the  slavery  question.  But  both  the  great 
political  parties  together,  however  stern  their  oppo- 
sition to  practical  Christianity,  could  not  destroy  the 
tenacious  life  of  the  anti-slavery  movement.  Speak- 
ing of  the  politicians  who  wondered  at  the  persist- 
ence of  the  spirit  of  revolt  against  slavery,  Mr.  Beecher 
said:  "  It  is  no  fanaticism  that  animates  or  controls 


1  "  Plymouth  Pulpit  Sermons,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  15. 


202  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

it,  it  is  the  religious  principle  that  is  the  secret  of  the 
strength  of  this  cause;  it  is  because  Jesus  Christ  is 
alive,  and  there  are  Jesus  Christ  men  who  count  this 
cause  dearer  than  their  lives."  ' 

In  many  respects  he  was  the  greatest  moral  leader 
whom  God  has  given  to  American  political  life.  Al- 
most always  he  was  in  the  vanguard  and  thus  exposed 
to  constant  attack.  A  lover  of  peace,  he  was  continu- 
ally at  war.  There  have  been  many  other  men  who 
were  far  greater  masters  of  intellectual  and  formal 
logic,  though  few  men  have  surpassed  him  in  the 
power  of  rapid  and  heated  argumentation  before  a 
large  assembly;  but  no  other  American  of  his  time 
grasped  more  firmly,  or  applied  more  wisely  to  the 
problems  then  in  hand,  the  principles  of  moral  logic. 
The  action  of  this  man,  who  had  no  fears,  was  deter- 
mined by  his  moral  convictions.  This  made  him  a 
great  reformer. 

Seeing  with  the  prophetic  clearness  of  a  Savonarola 
the  position  which  a  man  dedicated  to  righteousness 
ought  to  occupy,  he  was  in  his  place,  and  that  was 
almost  always  where  the  battle  was  thickest.  The 
weapons  which  he  saw  fit  to  use  were  not  merely 
those  of  "  sweetness  and  light."  Of  a  certain  class  of 
apologists  for  slavery  he  had  said  in  1850:  "  They 
hang  themselves  up  in  the  shambles  of  every  Southern 
market;  they  trust  the  pliant  good  nature  of  the  North, 
and  are  only  fearful  lest  they  should  fail  to  be  mean 
enough  to  please  the  South."  Of  course,  the  enemies 
of  such  a  man  hungered  for  an  opportunity  to  pull 
him  down  and  they  never  failed  to  improve  it.     Any- 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  257. 


THE    IRREPRESSIBLE    CONFLICT    CONTINUES.         203 

thing  against  him  which  could  be  twisted  into  the 
appearance  of  moral  obliquity  was  seized  as  eagerly 
in  1852  as  in  1872. 

In  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  Mrs.  Stowe,  after  describ- 
ing the  selling  of  a  child  from  its  mother's  arms,  took 
occasion  to  reprobate  the  Christian  ministers  who 
taught  that  the  institution  of  slavery  "  has  no  evils 
but  such  as  are  inseparable  from  any  other  relations 
in  social  and  domestic  life."  Dr.  Joel  Parker,  of 
Hartford,  to  whom  this  sentiment  was  ascribed  by 
Mrs.  Stowe,  and  who  had  not  contradicted  it,  though 
it  had  been  printed  in  many  newspapers,  both  Ameri- 
can and  English,  threatened  to  sue  Mrs.  Stowe  for 
libel.  On  account  of  the  aroused  moral  feeling  in 
the  North,  it  was  getting  uncomfortable  to  have  one's 
apologies  for  slavery  exposed. 

Mr.  Beecher  attempted  to  act  as  a  mediator  and 
peacemaker,  with  "  a  confidence  which  was  born  of 
sincerity  and  inexperience."  He  found  both  willing 
to  write  letters  of  explanation  which  modified  the 
positions  of  each.  Over  the  signatures  of  Dr.  Parker 
and  Mrs.  Stowe,  he  published  both  letters  and  went 
West  on  a  lecturing  trip,  vainly  thinking  that  he  had 
done  a  good  service.  "  Instead  of  making  peace  be- 
tween them,  he  found,  as  result  of  his  labors,  their 
differences  increased  and  embittered,  and  himself 
charged  with  forgery  both  of  letter  and  signature."  ' 

A  fierce  and  bitter  attack  was  made  upon  him  along 
the  whole  line  of  pro-slavery  conservatism,  and  his 
downfall  was  surely  expected.  Mr.  Beecher  was  to 
be  routed  from  his  entrenchments.     But  the  poisoned 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  260. 


204  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

arrow  met  an  impenetrable  shield.  "The  overthrow 
was  not  accomplished,  and  he  stood,  at  the  end,  fully 
vindicated  from  all  the  aspersions  of  his  enemies."1 

Nothing  in  his  whole  life  had  given  him  deeper 
sorrow  than  this  event;  he  had  labored  honestly  to 
avert  what  seemed  to  him  a  shame  and  disgrace,  and 
found  himself  exposed  to  every  form  of  contumely. 
During  all  this  painful  experience  he  felt  that  not  a 
single  promise  of  God  had  been  left  unfulfilled.  He 
said:  "I  know  that  it  has  been  a  better  sermon  to  me 
than  was  ever  preached  by  human  lips."  And  again 
he  wrote:  "  Had  I  ever  doubted  the  promises  of  God 
I  should  now  find  every  shadow  swept  away  ;  and  I 
surely  count  the  little  annoyance  which  this  perver- 
sion of  honor  and  truth  in  these  unprincipled  men 
has  caused  me  not  worthy  to  be  mentioned  in  the 
joy  which  I  have  had  in  being  folded  into  the  very 
bosom  of  my  Saviour."  And  again  he  wrote:  "  It  has 
pleased  God  to  so  graciously  stand  by  me  in  this 
fiercest  attack  of  my  life  that  if  every  friend  in  the 
world  had  abandoned  me  I  should  not  have  been 
alone."  2 

Thus  he  was  unconsciously  girding  himself  for  the 
bitterer  experiences,  the  sorer  trials,  of  his  later  life. 

It  was  not  merely  the  American  friends  of  slavery 
that  Mr.  Beecher  attacked.  When  John  Mitchell, 
the  "  great  Irish  patriot,"  had  been  warmly  wel- 
comed in  New  York,  and  had  dared  to  write  that  it 
was  neither  a  crime,  nor  a  wrong,  nor  even  a  pecca- 
dillo, to  hold,  buy,  and  sell  slaves,  and  keep  them  to 


1"  Biography,"  p.  262. 
8  "  Biography,"  p.  262. 


THE    IRREPRESSIBLE    CONFLICT    CONTINUES.  205 

their  work  by  flogging,  Mr.  Beecher  gave  this  spuri- 
ous apostle  of  liberty  such  a  whipping  as  few  men 
ever  more  richly  deserved.  "  Once  you  stood  like 
some  great  oak  whose  wide  circumference  was  lifted 
up  above  all  the  pastures,  the  glory  of  all  beholders, 
and  a  covert  for  a  thousand  timid  singing  birds!  Now 
you  lie  at  full  length  along  the  ground,  with  mighty 
ruptured  roots  ragged  and  upturned  to  Heaven,  with 
broken  boughs  and  despoiled  leaves  !  Never  again 
shall  husbandmen  predict  spring  from  your  swelling 
buds  !  Never  again  shall  God's  singing  birds  of  lib- 
erty come  down  through  all  the  heavenly  air  to  rest 
themselves  on  your  waving  top  !  Fallen  !  Uprooted  ! 
Doomed  to   the  axe  and  the  hearth."  3 

The  perpetual  compromises  of  1850  lasted  about 
four  years  !  Liberty  was  getting  the  advantage  in 
the  battle  for  the  possession  of  the  American  conti- 
nent. The  only  area  for  the  expansion  of  slavery 
lay  in  the  direction  of  the  Territories  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  and  the  slave-masters  set  their  eager  eyes 
on  that  fair  domain.  What  Lowell  had  sung  at  an 
earlier  time  was  true  then: 

"Slavery,  the  earth-born  Cyclops,  fellest  of  the  giant  brood, 
Sons  of  brutish   Force  and  Darkness,  who  have  drenched  the 

earth  with  blood, 
Famished  in  his  self-made  desert,  blinded  by  our  purer  day, 
Gropes  in  yet  unblasted  regions  for  his  miserable  prey; 
Shall    we  guide  his  gory  fingers  where  our   helpless  children 

play?" 

The  great  Kansas  fight  was  on,  when  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  in  January,  1854,  in  reporting  to  the  United 


"Biography,"  p.  266. 


206  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

States  Senate  a  bill  for  the  organizing  of  the  new 
Territories,  brought  in  the  proposition  to  repeal 
what  for  thirty-four  years  had  been  held  to  be  almost 
as  sacred  as  the  Constitution  itself,  the  Missouri 
Compromise.  According  to  this  proposition  slavery 
was  no  longer  to  be  excluded  as  a  matter  of  course 
north  of  the  prescribed  line,  but,  under  the  theory  of 
squatter  sovereignty  the  inhabitants  of  the  new  Ter- 
ritories were  to  decide  for  themselves  what  should 
be  their  domestic  institutions!  The  South  was  deter- 
mined to  make  slavery  national,  and  Douglas's  prop- 
osition gave  them  a  new  field  where  they  might 
wage  successful  fight. 

Flaming  indignation  burned  in  liberty-loving  hearts 
throughout  the  North.  A  protest  was  signed  by  three 
thousand  New  England  clergymen  against  the  action 
which  Douglas  proposed.  "  We  protest  against  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  as  a  great  moral 
wrong;  as  a  breach  of  faith  eminently  unjust  to  the 
moral  principles  of  the  community  and  subversive  of 
all  confidence  in  national  engagements;  as  a  measure 
full  of  danger  to  the  peace  and  even  the  existence  of 
our  beloved  Union,  and  exposing  us  to  the  righteous 
judgments  of  the  Almighty."  In  the  storm  of  oppo- 
sition to  this  repeal  both  the  Democratic  and  Whig 
parties  were  ultimately  broken  up. 


CHAPTER    XX. 

THE    PILGRIMS   ON    THE    KANSAS    PRAIRIES. 

Mr.  Beecher's  activity  with  voice  and  pen  was 
constant  and  intense.  In  a  Star  paper  on  "  The 
Crisis"  he  appealed  to  the  people  to  roll  their  thunder 
of  indignation  against  the  graceless  and  recreant 
herd  in  Congress  who  were  planning  this  perfidy 
and  outrage.  He  urged  individuals,  families,  and 
Churches  to  pour  their  petitions  into  Washington. 
"  In  this  solemn  hour  of  peril,  when  all  men's  hearts 
sink  within  them,  we  have  an  appeal  to  those  citizens 
who  rebuked  us  for  our  fears  in  1850. 

"  Did  you  not  declare  that  that  should  be  a 
finality  ?  Did  you  not  say  that  by  a  concession  of 
conscience  we  should  thereafter  have  peace? 

"  Is  this  the  peace  ?  Is  this  the  fulfillment  of  your 
promise  ?  Is  not  this  the  very  sequence  which  we 
told  you  would  come?  That  Compromise  was  a 
ball  of  frozen  rattlesnakes.  You  turned  them  in  your 
hands  then  with  impunity.  We  warned  and  besought. 
We  protested  and  adjured.  You  persisted  in  bring- 
ing them  into  the  dwelling.  You  laid  them  down 
before  the  fire.  Now  where  are  they  ?  They  are 
crawling  all  around.  Their  fangs  are  striking  death 
into  every  precious  interest  of  liberty !  It  is  your 
work."1 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  274. 


208  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

"The  North  is  both  bound  and  asleep.  It  is  bound 
with  bonds  of  unlawful  compromise.  You,  ministers 
of  Christ,  held  her  limbs,  while  the  gaunt  and  worthy 
minions  of  oppression  moved  about,  twisting  inextric- 
able cords  about  her  hands  and  feet;  or,  like  Saul, 
stood  by,  holding  the  garments  of  those  that  slew  the 
martyr.  The  poor  Northern  conscience  has  been  like 
a  fly  upon  a  spider's  web.  Her  statesmen,  and  not  a 
few  of  her  ministers,  have  rolled  up  the  struggling 
insect,  singing  fainter  and  fainter,  with  webs  of  soph- 
istry, till  it  now  lies  a  miserable,  helpless  victim  and 
slavery  is  crawling  up  to  suck  its  vital  blood."  ' 

When  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
accomplished  in  September  1854,  the  battle  was  at 
once  transferred  from  the  halls  in  Washington  to  the 
prairies  of  Kansas.  Then  was  witnessed  a  movement 
which  showed  that  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution,  the 
spirit  which  settled  New  England,  the  spirit  which 
sent  the  Mayflojver  across  the  Atlantic  was  not  ex- 
tinguished.    Whittier  sang  of  the  Kansas  emigrants: 

"We  cross  the  prairie  as  of  old 
The  Pilgrims  crossed  the  sea, 
To  make  the  West,  as  they  the  East, 
The  homestead  of  the  free." 

"  We  go  to  rear  a  wall  of  men 
On  Freedom's  southern  line, 
And  plant  beside  the  cotton-tree 
The  rugged  northern  pine." 

By  terrorism,  fraudulent  elections,  and  every  kind 
of  perfidy  and  violence,  the  emissaries  of  slavery, 
headed    by  the  acting  Vice-President  of  the  United 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  275. 


THE    PILGRIMS    ON    THE    KANSAS    PRAIRIES.  209 

States,  Senator  Atchison,  sought  to  gain  and  main- 
tain possession  of  the  new  territory.  A  fraudulent 
legislature,  backed  by  United  States  Courts,  mar- 
shals, and  soldiers,  strove  to  keep  freedom  out  of 
Kansas.  Monstrous  laws  were  enacted  by  the  villain- 
ous legislative  body  called  together  by  the  Lecompton 
Constitution.  The  friends  of  freedom  needed  to  be 
active.  The  purpose  to  rescue  the  virgin  territory 
from  the  despoiler  became  a  holy  enthusiasm  in  the 
North.  Emigrant  societies  were  organized  to  redeem 
Kansas. 

Up-bearing,  like  the  Ark  of  old, 

The  Bible  in  our  van, 

We  go  to  test  the  truth  of  God 

Against  the  fraud  of  man. 

In  July,  1854,  the  beautiful  town  of  Lawrence, 
destined  to  achieve  a  splendid  fame  in  the  annals  of 
liberty  and  learning,  was  founded  by  noble  men  from 
New  England.  The  free-State  settlers  rallied  about 
the  strong  leaders,  and  the  Topeka  Constitution  was 
adopted  in  October,  1855.  Then  followed  the  bloody 
Kansas  war,  which  was  to  fire  the  heart  of  one  grim 
old  Puritan,  and  nerve  him  to  strike  the  preliminary 
blow,  by  which  the  slave  system  in  America  was  at 
last  to  fall. 

Not  satisfied  with  the  effort  to  capture  Kansas, 
slavery  sought  also  to  buy  Cuba  from  Spain,  and,  if 
this  were  not  possible,  threatened  to  tear  that  Pearl 
of  the  Antilles  from  the  Spanish  Crown.  In  1857 
came  the  infamous  Dred  Scott  decision  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  which  gave  the  slaveholder 
the  right  to  take  his  human  property  into  any  part  of 
the  United  States  territory.  The  anti-slavery  leaders 
14 


2IO  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

felt,  as  never  before,  that  the  Constitution  was  being 
perverted  from  the  intent  of  its  founders,  while  the 
Abolitionists  became  more  certain  than  ever  that  the 
Constitution  was  a  covenant  with  death  and  a  league 
with  hell. 

These  years  were  among  the  most  critical  in  the 
anti-slavery  struggle.  Mr.  Beecher  felt  the  supreme 
importance  of  the  contest,  and  discerned  that  a  great 
crisis  must  be  sternly  met.  When  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise was  repealed,  and  the  doctrine  of  squatter 
sovereignty  promulgated,  he  saw  immediately  that 
every  effort  must  be  put  forth  to  strengthen  freedom 
in  Kansas.  With  all  the  fiery  zeal,  begotten  of  intense 
conviction,  he  flung  his  whole  force  into  this  fight. 
Up  and  down  the  land  he  lectured,  and  in  Plymouth 
Church  and  elsewhere,  as  he  spoke  for  freedom,  he 
collected  money  to  supply  the  settlers  in  Kansas  both 
with  Bibles  and  rifles.  "  Some  of  the  rifles,"  it  is 
said,  "  were  sent  in  boxes  marked  Bibles,  but  without 
his  knowledge,  and  so  passed  in  safety  through 
Missouri  and  the  enemy's  lines.  Hence  the  term 
'  Beecher's  Bibles'  came  to  be  applied  to  these 
effective  weapons."1 

The  great  War  Governor  of  Indiana,  afterwards 
Senator  Morton,  described  on  one  occasion  a  long 
conversation  which  he  had  with  Mr.  Beecher,  in 
which  the  pastor  of  Plymouth  Church  went  thor- 
oughl)r  over  the  whole  ground  of  the  anti-slavery 
struggle,  marked  the  principles  which  should  control 
it,  and  the  policies  which  should  be  followed.  The 
conversation    made    such    an    impression    upon    the 


1 "  Biography,"  p.  283. 


THE    PILGRIMS   ON   THE    KANSAS    PRAIRIES.  211 

patriotic  son  of  Indiana  that,  near  the  end  of  his  life, 
he  expressed  a  strong  conviction  that  Mr.  Beecher 
was  the  greatest  statesman  of  his  time.  And  as  we 
read  what  he  wrote  and  said  in  1854,  and  the  years 
immediately  following,  we  understand  some  of  the 
grounds  for  this  noble  eulogy.  With  the  clearest 
perception  of  principles,  he  had  that  wisdom  of  bold- 
ness which  is  a  chief  characteristic  of  great  states- 
manship in  times  of  revolution. 

In  an  article  on  the  defense  of  Kansas,  he  said:  "  A 
battle  is  to  be  fought.  If  we  are  wise,  it  will  be 
bloodless.  If  we  listen  to  the  pusillanimous  counsels 
of  men  who  have  never  showed  one  throb  of  sympa- 
thy for  liberty,  we  shall  have  blood  to  the  horses' 
bridles.  If  bold  wisdom  prevails,  the  conflict  will  be 
settled  afar  off  in  Kansas  and  without  blows  or  blood. 
But  timidity  and  indifference  will  bring  down  blows 
there  which  will  not  only  echo  in  our  homes  hither- 
ward,  but  will  by-and-by  lay  the  foundation  for  an 
armed  struggle  between  the  whole  North  and  South. 

"  Once  when  England  only  asserted  the  right  to 
tax  the  Colonies  without  representation,  the  Colonies 
rebelled  and  went  to  war,  But  now  a  foreign  legisla- 
ture has  been  imposed  upon  Kansas.  That  legislature 
has  legalized  slavery  against  the  known  wishes  of 
nine-tenths  of  the  actual  settlers.  It  has  decreed  that 
no  man  shall  enter  the  Territory  who  will  not  take 
an  oath  of  allegiance  to  this  spurious  legislature.  It 
has  made  it  death  to  give  liberty  to  the  man  escaping 
from  oppression;  it  has  muzzled  the  press;  it  has  for- 
bidden discussion.  It  has  made  free  speech  a  peni- 
tentiary offense.  The  rights  for  which  the  old  Colo- 
nists   fought   were    superficial   compared    to   these. 


212  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

These  are  the  rights  which  lie  at  the  very  heart  of 
personal  liberty. 

"  But  what  is  done  must  be  done  quickly.  Funds 
must  be  freely  given;  arms  must  be  had,  even  if 
bought  at  the  price  mentioned  by  our  Saviour:  '  He 
that  hath  no  sword,  let  him  sell  his  garment  and  buy 
one.'  Young  men  who  would  do  aught  for  liberty 
should  take  no  counsel  of  fear.  Now  is  the  time 
when  a  man  may  do  for  his  country  in  an  hour  more 
than  in  a  whole  life  besides."  1 

There  was  one  man  in  the  United  States  Senate 
who,  with  equal  force  and  courage,  was  doing  noble 
battle  in  the  same  cause.  The  blows  he  dealt  at  the 
Nation's  giant  sin  came  back  on  his  own  head.  On 
the  22d  of  May,  1856,  the  South  Carolina  bully,  Pres- 
ton S.  Brooks,  brought  his  heavy  bludgeon  down 
upon  Charles  Sumner,  as  he  sat  at  his  desk,  unable 
to  rise.  Against  this  outrage  the  North  everywhere 
protested.  Sumner  had  taken  a  strong  hold  on  the 
minds  of  multitudes  of  the  educated  young  men  in 
the  North.  He  had  touched  and  roused  the  North- 
ern conscience  and  furnished  a  victorious  battle- 
cry  to  the  political  opponents  of  oppression  in  the 
declaration  that  Freedom  was  National  and  that 
Slavery  was  sectional.  The  Quaker  poet  of  Freedom 
sung  of  him  as  one, 

"Who  to  the  lettered  wealth 
Of  ages  adds  the  lore  unpriced, 
The  wisdom  and  the  moral  health, 
The  ethics  of  the  school  of  Christ; 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  286. 


THE    PILGRIMS    ON    THE    KANSAS    PRAIRIES.  213 

The  statesman  to  his  holy  trust, 

As  the  Athenian  Archon,  just, 
Struck  down,  exiled  like  him  for  Truth  alone." 

Mr.  Beecher's  unequaled  power  of  bringing  all 
his  intellectual  resources  to  the  front  on  the  instant, 
when  his  soul  was  filled  with  fiery  and  overmastering 
emotion,  was  impressively  and  grandly  illustrated  at 
the  close  of  an  immense  meeting  in  New  York  City, 
called  to  protest  against  the  dastardly  outrage  com- 
mitted on  the  Massachusetts  Senator.  He  had  been 
a  quiet  and  interested  listener  to  the  speeches  of 
William  M.  Evarts  and  others,  who  had  held  the 
attention  of  the  meeting,  but  had  not  satisfied  either 
the  feelings  or  the  convictions  of  the  audience.  It  is 
one  of  the  strangely  interesting  facts  in  the  history  of 
popular  demonstrations,  that  the  people  themselves 
are  sometimes  more  eloquent,  fuller  of  passionate 
feeling,  readier  for  an  advanced  position  than  those 
who  happen  to  be  their  speakers.  There  were  several 
occasions  of  this  sort  after  the  death  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  when  the  set  and  formal  speeches  of  able 
men  were  very  unsatisfactory,  but  where  others  who 
had  made  no  intellectual  preparation,  but  who  gave 
themselves  up  to  the  tide  of  feeling  that  surged 
through  all  hearts,  mastered  the  occasion. 

While  the  meeting  was  adjourning,  Mr.Beecher  was 
discovered  in  the  rear  of  the  hall,  and  the  hungry 
people  demanded  that  he  be  called  forward  to  the 
platform.  Mr.  Evarts  remarked  that  it  would  be  a 
great  pleasure  to  hear  the  distinguished  clergyman, 
but  Mr.  Beecher  was  out  of  the  city.  Some  people, 
however,  shouted:  "  No,  he  is  here,"  and  very  reluc- 
tantly, yielding  to  an  irresistible  demand,  he  went  to 


214  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

the  platform  and  pronounced  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful and  powerful  addresses  of  his  lifetime. 

Beginning  with  a  clear  narrative  of  the  facts  which 
were  in  themselves  an  appeal  to  passionate  hatred 
of  slavery,  he  was  eagerly  carried  forward  into  a 
comprehensive  survey  of  the  whole  anti-slavery  con- 
test, of  the  principles  involved,  of  the  mighty  stakes 
at  issue.  When  we  read  what  were  the  tremendous 
effects  of  this  speech,  of  the  waves  of  flaming  enthus- 
iasm that  rolled  over  the  excited  audience,  we 
remember  what  was  written  by  Lord  Lytton,  of  the 
eloquence  of  Daniel  O'Connell: 

"  Then  did  I  know  what  spells  of  infinite  choice 
To  rouse  and  lull,  has  the  sweet  human  voice; 
Thus  did  I  learn  to  seize  the  sudden  clew 
To  the  grand  troublous  life  antique — to  view 
Under  the  rock-stand  of  Demosthenes 
Unstable  Athens  heave  her  noisy  seas." 

The  next  day  the  people  found  that  it  was  Beecher's 
speech  which  was  completely  reproduced  in  the 
papers,  while  the  others  received  but  slight  notice. 
From  that  time  on,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  took  rank 
with  the  foremost  leaders  of  the  anti-slavery  move- 
ment. 

There  are  few  things  which  he  ever  wrote  that  are 
more  scathing  than  his  analysis  of  the  reasons  offered 
by  some  men  for  not  attending  the  meetings  called 
to  protest  against  the  brutal  cowardice  and  cruelty 
which  struck  down  Senator  Sumner,  and  which,  hav- 
ing been  accepted  by  the  South,  made  the  South  in 
part  responsible  for  an  almost  unparalleled  crime. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  ITS  GREAT  LEADERS. 

The  Republican  party  was  now  coming  to  its  great 
life,  gathering  into  its  ranks  a  constantly  augmenting 
number  of  the  best  minds  and  bravest  hearts  of  the 
country.  "During  the  years  1854  and  1855  it  had 
acquired  control  of  the  governments  in  a  majority 
of  the  free  States,  and  it  promptly  called  a  National 
Convention  to  meet  in  Philadelphia  in  June,  1856. 
The  Democracy  saw  at  once  that  a  new  and  danger- 
ous opponent  was  in  the  field, — an  opponent  that 
stood  upon  principle  and  shunned  expediency,  that 
brought  to  its  standard  a  great  host  of  young  men, 
and  that  won  to  its  service  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  talent,  the  courage,  and  the  eloquence  of  the 
North."1 

No  eulogy  uttered  by  the  most  impassioned  orator 
at  a  national  political  convention  has  perhaps,  over- 
stated the  significance,  glory,  and  substantial  services 
of  that  remarkable  organization,  born  of  a  grand  pur- 
pose, to  oppose  the  aggressions  of  slavery.  That  it 
raised  all  the  effective  barriers  ever  built  against  the 
spread  of  the  slave-power,  that  it  nurtured  and  or- 
ganized the  anti-slavery  sentiment  which  so  many 
causes   had  repressed   and  weakened,  that   it  made 


1  Blaine's  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  126. 


2l6  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

clear  to  the  popular  mind  the  obscured  ideals  of  lib- 
erty, and  brought  out  of  the  gloom  the  earlier  and 
brighter  ideals  of  the  Republic,  that  it  forced  upon 
the  South  a  clear  understanding  of  the  impossibility 
of  peaceably  nationalizing  her  peculiar  institution, 
that  it  furnished  the  administration,  and  very  largely 
the  military  force,  which  destroyed  the  colossal  rebel- 
lion and  made  the  Union  permanent,  that  it  adopted 
and  continued  a  commercial  and  financial  policy 
which  contributed  largely  to  make  the  United  States 
the  richest  and  most  prosperous  of  nations,  that  it 
gathered  into  its  ranks  the  great  mass  of  the  most  in- 
telligent and  religious  forces  of  the  North,  that  it 
furnished  and  trained  the  illustrious  statesmen  who 
are  the  glory  of  the  second  great  epoch  of  American 
history,  that  it  successfully  restored  to  peace  the  dis- 
cordant and  dismembered  Union,  brought  about  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments,  strengthened  and 
heightened  the  financial  credit  of  the  Government, 
and  rendered  a  multitude  of  other  services,  making 
its  policies  so  popular  that  one  by  one  they  have  been 
adopted  by  its  opponents;  these  are  facts  which 
justify  a  patriotic  rather  than  a  partisan  enthusiasm, 
and  which  made  Mr.  Beecher  and  many  others  all  the 
more  deeply  deplore  the  later  corruptions  of  the 
party,  and  mourn  the  decadence  of  the  brave  spirit 
out  of  which  it  originally  sprang. 

John  C.  Fremont  was  nominated  as  the  leader  of 
the  Republican  hosts  in  the  Presidential  contest  of 
1856,  on  a  platform  pledged  to  resistance  of  any 
further  extension  of  slavery,  and  any  further  compro- 
mise with  slave  institutions.  The  convention  in 
Philadelphia   declared  it  to  be  "  both  the  right  and 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  ITS  GREAT  LEADERS.   217 

the  imperative  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit  in  the 
Territories  those  twin  relics  of  barbarism, — polyga- 
my and  slavery." 

Following  the  Philadelphia  Convention,  Mr. 
Beecher  wrote  one  of  the  greatest  editorials  for  The 
Independent  that  ever  appeared  in  an  American  jour- 
nal. It  revealed  an  enlightened  statesmanship  of  the 
highest  order.  The  article  was  called  "  On  which 
Side  is  Peace  ? "  And  while  it  showed  that  the  North 
desired  peace,  and  that  all  its  interests,  agricultural, 
manufacturing,  commercial,  social,  civil,  and  religious, 
demanded  peace,  the  way  to  secure  it  was  not  by 
further  yielding  to  the  demands  of  slavery.  "  There 
are  periods  in  the  history  of  men,  and  of  communi- 
ties, in  which  timid  counsels  are  rash  and  dangerous. 
When  a  building  is  on  fire,  and  quantities  of  explo- 
sive materials  are  awaiting  its  approach,  the  only 
moderation  consists  in  the  most  intense  courage  and 
desperate  daring.  He  is  the  prudent  man  who 
rushes  in  between  the  flame  and  powder  and  sepa- 
rates them.  " ' 

He  showed  that  the  national  building  was  already 
on  fire,  that  the  flame  was  running  to  the  magazine, 
that  fifteen  States  in  the  Union  had  based  their  social 
condition  on  a  system  of  involuntary  servitude,  de- 
moralizing to  personal  habits  and  political  ideas; 
that  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  and  liberty  of 
political  action  were  inconsistent  with  slavery.  "  If 
it  is  right  to  have  slavery,  it  is  right  to  have  its 
necessary  defenses.  Ignorance  is  right  if  slavery  is 
right.     Free  speech  is  wrong  if  slavery  is   right.    A 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  196. 


2l8  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

system  of  force  cannot  deal  with  moral  suasion.  You 
cannot  lay  the  foundations  of  a  political  system 
upon  the  law  of  Might,  and  then  run  up  its  towers 
and  spires  by  the  doctrine  of  Right.  " ' 

"The  same  secret,  fatal  current  of  necessity,  drifts 
the  South  toward  the  extension  of  slavery.  While 
free  States  are  growing  with  prodigious  dispropor- 
tion, there  can  be  no  doubt  that  slave  States  will  be- 
come imbecile  and  helpless  in  comparison.  Virginia 
cannot  grow — Pennsylvania  cannot  stand  still.  The 
Carolinas  are  sinking  by  the  nature  of  their  industry 
— New  York  is  advancing  prodigiously.  Georgia  has 
no  chance  in  a  match  with  Ohio.  If  the  slave  States 
stand  as  they  are,  and  depend  upon  the  inherent 
energies  of  their  own  system,  they  are  doomed,  in- 
evitably, to  become  the  last  and  least."11 

After  showing  that  the  policy  of  the  South  was  not 
one  of  vexatious  haughtiness  but  of  necessity,  spring- 
ing from  the  very  organization  of  her  society,  he 
made  it  plain  that  wise  men  would  not  put  into  places 
of  supreme  national  power  those  who  represented 
this  system  with  all  its  tendencies,  that  it  would  be 
wrong  to  give  the  control  of  the  continent  to  a 
system  which  needed  continual  enlargement  in  order 
to  make  up  year  by  year  its  own  desperate  weakness 

"The  men,  who  denied  the  right  of  petition;  who 
made  war  on  Mexico;  who  introduced  Texas  as  a 
slave  State;  who  compelled  the  North,  in  1850,  to 
take  the  compromise,  promising  that  it  should  be  a 
finality ;  who  broke   a   Nation's  word  and  faith,  and 


'  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  197,  lc 
2  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  199. 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  ITS  GREAT  LEADERS.   219 

abolished  the  Missouri  Compromise,  promising  that 
Kansas  should  be  free  or  slave  as  its  people  chose; 
who,  before  the  words  of  promise  were  cold,  invaded 
Kansas  with  armed  bands,  and  committed  on  the 
real  settlers  every  crime  which  is  marked  in  the 
criminal  calendar;  who  sent  thither  United  States 
troops,  and  brought  the  whole  force  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  corroborate  the  Civil  War  which  the  South 
had  kindled  there;  who,  failing  in  intimidating  free 
speech,  assaulted  with  the  bludgeon,  in  the  Senate 
Chamber,  one  of  the  noblest  national  men,  and  with 
almost  unanimous  consent  justified  the  felony — this 
party  have  published  a  platform  and  nominated  a 
candidate  for  the  next  four  critical  years  in  our 
history." ' 

Mr.  Beecher  appealed  to  considerate  men  not  to 
continue  in  power  the  malign  forces  which  he  had 
described.  "  Will  it  be  possible,"  he  asked, "  with  such 
a  history  coming  on,  to  avoid  a  conflict,  compared 
with  which  anything  we  have  ever  known  will  be 
child's  play?  "  "When  the  arms  of  the  South  shall 
be  made  strong,  and  her  feet  shall  be  made  firm  upon 
the  high  places  of  Government,  is  there  anything  in 
the  bearing  and  temper  of  the  South  hitherto,  which 
may  lead  us  to  hope  for  moderation  ?  Will  not  her 
necessities  make  her  as  violent  hereafter  as  hereto- 
fore ?  If  the  lion's  whelp  is  dangerous  even  when 
kenneled,  will  it  become  harmless  when  grown  into 
the  full  lion,  and  roving  at  its  will  in  unrestrained 
liberty  ? " 

He  showed  that  the  platform  on  which  Mr.  Buchan- 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  200. 


220  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

an  stood  was  a  platform  made  wholly  of  Southern 
pine.  "  It  stands  sharply  against  Northern  doctrines. 
It  portends  an  open  and  undisguised  sweep  of 
Southern  ideas  across  our  whole  continent.  And 
unless  the  North  has  made  up  its  mind  to  go  into  the 
minority,  to  give  up  all  the  inherent  advantages  be- 
longing to  free  labor,  to  yield  up  liberty  of  speech, 
and  freedom  of  soil,  and  nationality  of  legislation, 
then  the  election  of  Mr.  Buchanan  will  be  the  begin- 
ning of  an  excitement  and  of  a  warfare  such  as  has 
never  been  dreamed  of  hitherto."  ] 

He  showed  that  while  Mr.  Buchanan  sincerely 
loved  peace  every  vote  for  him  was  a  vote  for  war. 
"  If  men  wish  wilder  times,  fiercer  conflicts,  deadlier 
civil  war,  let  them  vote  for  the  Southern  platform. 
Northern  moderation  now  will  be  bloodshed  by  and 
by." 

"  The  only  way  to  peace  is  that  way  which  shall 
chain  slavery  to  the  place  that  it  now  has,  and  say  to 
the  dragon — '  In  thine  own  den  thou  mayest  dwell, 
and  lie  down  in  thine  own  slime.  But  thou  shalt  not 
go  forth  to  ravage  free  territory,  nor  leave  thy  trail 
upon  unspotted  soil.'  "" 

Prophetic  statesmanship  so  clear,  wise,  far-seeing  as 
this  is  rare  at  any  time.  It  is  no  wonder  that  Mr. 
Beecher  was  early  recognized  not  only  as  a  powerful 
reformer,  but  as  possessing  in  an  unusual  degree 
every  statesmanlike  quality  of  mind.  With  the 
hearty  consent  of  his  own  Church,  Mr.  Beecher 
entered  on  the  memorable  canvass  of  1856,  with  all 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  201. 
9  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  202. 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  ITS  GREAT  LEADERS.   221 

the  vigor  of  the  conviction  which  had  been  nurtured 
and  deepened  in  previous  contests.  He  made  three 
hours'  speeches,  several  times  a  week,  before  audi- 
ences of  many  thousands,  especially  in  those  districts 
of  New  York  State  where  the  old-time  Whigs  were 
attempting  to  run  in  a  third  candidate. 

A  warm  friend  of  Mr.  Beecher  (Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt, 
of  Chicago)  furnishes  the  following  interesting 
reminiscence  of  this  campaign:  "In  the  year  1856, 
when  Fremont  was  the  first  Presidential  candidate  of 
the  Republican  Party,  the  Republicans  of  Woodstock 
Commons,  Connecticut,  held  a  large  Republican  rally 
or  barbecue,  as  it  was  called,  to  which  came  thou- 
sands from  the  neighboring  country.  Many  went 
from  my  native  place,  Southbridge,  Massachusetts, 
a  few  miles  across  the  line,  and  my  father  took  us 
boys  to  this  great  meeting.  I  remember  among  the 
interesting  things  was  a  large  delegation  from  East 
Woodstock,  and  in  that  procession  was  an  immense 
wagon,  drawn  by  some  twenty-five  pairs  of  oxen, 
and  upon  the  wagon  were  young  ladies,  dressed  in 
white,  one  to  represent  each  State  of  the  Union,  as  it 
then  was. 

An  enormous  crowd  was  upon  the  Common  during 
the  speeches  that  were  made  by  men  of  national 
reputati  m.  I  remember  when  standing  by  my  father, 
holding  his  hand,  that  Henry  J.  Raymond,  the  famous 
editor  of  the  New  York  Times,  made  a  speech,  and 
that  during  this  speech  there  strolled  along  our  way, 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  a  man  who  came  near 
to  us,  and  stood  by  us.  He  was  a  striking-looking 
person,  with  a  strong,  manly  face;  long  hair  that 
reached  to  his  shoulders,  a  remarkable  eye,  a  high 


222  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

forehead.  He  wore  a  light-colored  slouch  hat,  and 
from  his  shoulders  hung  a  gray  shawl,  such  as  were 
worn  very  generally  instead  of  overcoats  by  men  in 
those  days.  His  face  attracted  me,  young  as  I  was, 
and  on  that  day  began  an  admiration  for  it,  and  a 
constant  desire  to  look  upon  it,  whenever  in  his  pres- 
ence, that  amounted,  I  may  say,  to  a  fascination  to 
me  to  the  end  of  his  days.  My  father  said  to  me: 
'  That  is  Henry  Ward  Beecher,'  and  then  we  spoke 
with  him.  His  kindly  way  won  me  from  the  first. 
He  strolled  about  the  edge  of  the  crowd  for  awhile, 
and  then  went  toward  the  platform,  and  followed 
Mr.  Raymond.  Young  as  I  was,  I  was  much  inter- 
ested to  see  how  he  entertained,  interested,  and  in- 
structed the  audience,  made  up  of  people  of  all  sorts 
— farmers,  merchants,  young  men,  young  women, 
boys,  and  girls,  and  although  I  cannot  recall  a  word 
that  he  said  on  that  occasion,  as  I  was  too  young  to 
remember  such  speeches,  I  remember  that  his  words 
influenced  me  then  in  favor  of  freedom,  and  to  hate 
slavery,  and  to  admire  Fremont,  the  Pathfinder,  who 
was  the  first  nominee  of  the  Republican  party." 

The  same  writer  recalls  an  incident  which  Mr. 
Beecher  told  him  years  afterward,  in  connection 
with  a  speech  in  the  Fremont  campaign  which  he 
made  at  Rome,  N.  Y.  "  He  mentioned  it  as  one  of 
the  most  entertaining  and  amusing  of  the  many  that 
occurred  in  his  public  life.  He  said  that  when 
speaking  at  Rome  one  evening  upon  the  two  leading 
candidates,  and  alluding  to  the  third,  the  compromise 
candidate,  he  said:  '  My  friends,  in  this  great  cam- 
paign there  are  but  two  sides,  and  we  must  range 
ourselves  upon  one    side  or  the   other;    there  is  no 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  ITS  GREAT  LEADERS.   223 

middle  ground  for  any  of  us.  On  the  one  side  is 
Buchanan,  with  the  black  shield  of  slavery,  and  upon 
the  other  is  Fremont,  with  the  white  banner  of  lib- 
erty, and  with  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  you  must 
take  your  stand;  but  who  is  this  that  I  see  crawling 
under  the  fence?  Oh,  that  is  Millard  Fillmore.'  Im- 
mediately a  little  dapper  fellow  in  the  front  row 
jumped  up,  looked  in  under  the  chairs,  and  shouted 
out:  '  Where  is  he  ? '  A  large  number  of  the  audience 
saw  and  heard  it,  and  broke  out  into  uproarious 
laughter  that  extended  throughout  the  whole  house, 
and  stopped  the  speaking  for  several  minutes.  They 
laughed  so  that  the  little  fellow  felt  so  uncomforta- 
ble he  got  up  and  went  out.  All  through  the  eve- 
ning, every  few  minutes,  some  one  would  sing  out  in 
some  part  of  the  house:  '  Where  is  he  ? '  Then  there 
would  be  a  ripple  of  laughter  that  would  extend 
throughout  the  hall,  and  the  speech  be  interrupted, 
Mr.  Beecher  himself  joining  with  the  audience  hear- 
tily." 

Mr.  Beecher  said  of  this  campaign: "  I  felt  at  that 
time  that  it  was  very  likely  that  I  should  sacrifice  my 
life,  or  my  voice  at  any  rate,  but  I  was  willing  to  lay 
down  either,  or  both  of  them,  for  that  cause."  There 
probably  has  been  no  political  campaign  in  the 
United  States  into  which  so  much  moral  enthusiasm 
entered,  and  probably  no  Presidential  campaign,  un- 
less it  be  those  of  1840  and  1884,  into  which  was  car- 
ried so  much  personal  enthusiasm,  as  was  roused  by 
the  struggle  to  elect  Fremont  in  1856.  It  drew  into 
its  fervid  discussion  many  of  the  greatest  men  of  the 
critical  epoch  which  was  soon  to  come.  Henry  Wil- 
son and  John  A.  Andrew  in  Massachusetts,  William 


224  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

H.  Seward  in  New  York,  Oliver  Perry  Morton  in 
Indiana,  Abraham  Lincoln  in  Illinois,  Jacob  M. 
Howard  in  Michigan,  the  sturdy  and  great-minded 
statesman,  Timothy  Otis  Howe,  of  Wisconsin,  des- 
tined to  a  leading  position  in  the  United  States  Senate; 
James  G.  Blaine,  of  Maine,  a  young  journalist  of 
twenty-six,  who  then  gained  his  first  eminence  as  a 
public  speaker;  these  were  a  few  of  the  men  whose 
voices  rang  out  in  the  summer  of  1856  against  further 
compromise  with  the  friends  of  slavery  extension. 

There  was  much  in  Fremont  himself  and  in  his 
career  to  inspire  the  young  anti-slavery  voters.  He 
was  a  soldier,  a  gallant  explorer;  he  had  associated  his 
name  with  Rocky  Mountain  adventures.  Though  a 
native  of  South  Carolina,  he  had  been  foremost  in 
the  struggle  to  make  California  free,  and  to  bring  her 
into  the  Union;  he  had  been  one  of  the  first  Senators 
from  that  golden  commonwealth  of  the  Pacific. 
Whittier's  lines  on  "  The  Pass  of  the  Sierra,"  which 
told  how  he  had  led  his  mountain  men  over  the 
frozen  throne  of  winter  down  into  the  warm  valleys 
and  summer  fields  which  lay  to  the  westward,  stir  the 
blood  even  now,  as  they  drew  the  hot  tears  in  the 
August  of  1856  : 

"  Strong  leader  of  that  mountain  band, 
Another  task  remains, 
To  break  from  Slavery's  desert  land 
A  path  to  Freedom's  plains. 

The  winds  are  wild,  the  way  is  drear, 

Yet,  flashing  through  the  night, 
Lo!  icy  ridge  and  rocky  spear 

Blaze  out  in  morning  light ! " 


REPUBLICAN  PARTY  AND  ITS  GREAT  LEADERS.      225 

"Rise  up,  FRfiMONT!  and  go  before; 
The  Hour  must  have  its  man  ; 
Put  on  the  hunting-shirt  once  more, 
And  lead  in  Freedom's  van." 

One  of  Mr.  Belcher's  most  effective  articles  during 
the  campaign  was  the  story  of  the  dog  Noble  and  the 
empty  hole,  in  which  he  made  fun  of  the  persistent 
attacks  of  certain  pro-slavery  newspapers,  who  tried  to 
make  capital  against  Fremont  by  falsely  asserting  that 
he  was  a  Roman  Catholic.  Fremont  had  fallen  in  love 
with  Jessie  Benton,  the  daughter  of  the  great  Senator 
from  Missouri,  and  the  lovers  had  run  away  and  been 
married  by  a  Catholic  priest.  "  If  we  had  been  in 
Col.  Fremont's  place,"  wrote  Mr.  Beecher,  "  we  would 
have  been  married,  if  it  had  required  us  to  walk 
through  a  row  of  priests  and  bishops  as  long  as  from 
Washington  to  Rome,  ending  up  with  the  Pope  him- 
self." The  famous  story  narrated  the  enthusiasm  of 
an  intelligent  dog,  named  Noble,  who  having  seen  a 
red  squirrel  running  into  a  hole  in  a  stone  wall  could 
not  be  persuaded  that  the  squirrel  was  not  in  that 
hole  for  ever.  "When  all  other  occupations  failed, 
this  hole  remained  to  him.  When  there  were  no 
more  chickens  to  harry,  no  pigs  to  bite,  no  cattle  to 
chase,  no  children  to  romp  with,  no  expeditions  to 
make  with  the  grown  folks,  and  when  he  had  slept  all 
his  dog-skin  would  hold,  he  would  walk  out  of  the 
yard,  yawn  and  stretch  himself,  and  then  look  wistfully 
at  the  hole  as  if  thinking  to  himself:  '  Well,  as  there 
is  nothing  else  to  do  I  may  as  well  try  that  hole 
again!  ' 

"We  had  almost  forgotten  this  little  trait  until  the 
conduct  of  the  New  York  Express  in  respect  to  Col. 

IS 


226  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

Fremont's  religion  brought  it  ludicrously  to  mind 
again.  Col.  Fremont  is  and  always  has  been  as 
sound  a  Protestant  as  John  Knox  ever  was.  He  was 
bred  in  the  Protestant  faith  and  has  never  changed. 
.  .  .  But  the  Express,  like  Noble,  has  opened  on 
this  hole  in  the  wall  and  can  never  be  done  barking 
at  it.  Day  after  day  it  resorts  to  this  empty  hole. 
When  everything  else  fails  this  resource  remains. 
There  they  are  indefatigably,  the  Express  and  Noble, 
a  Church  without  a  Fremont,  and  a  hole  without  a 
squirrel  in  it!  .  .  .  We  never  read  the  Express 
nowadays  without  thinking  involuntarily,  '  Goodness, 
the  dog  is  letting  off  at  that  hole  again."' 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

TRUTH  ON  THE  SCAFFOLD,  WRONG  ON  THE  THRONE. 

Fremont  was  defeated,  and  never  rose  again,  ex- 
cept for  a  brief  period  in  the  war,  to  national  prom- 
inence. James  Buchanan,  the  tool  of  slavery,  was 
placed  in  the  White  House.  But  the  Republican 
party  had  won  its  first  great  victory.  Fremont  had 
received  over  a  million  three  hundred  thousand  votes. 

"The  Republicans,  far  from  being  discouraged, 
felt  and  acted  as  men  who  had  won  the  battle. 
Indeed  the  moral  triumph  was  theirs,  and  they  be- 
lieved that  the  actual  victory  at  the  polls  was  only 
postponed.  The  Democrats  were  mortified  and  as- 
tounded by  the  large  popular  vote  against  them.  The 
loss  of  New  York  and  Ohio,  the  narrow  escape  from 
defeat  in  Pennsylvania,  the  rebuke  of  Michigan  to 
their  veteran  leader,  General  Cass,  intensified  by  the 
choice  of  Chandler,  his  successor  in  the  Senate,  the 
absolute  consolidation  of  New  England  against 
them,  all  tended  to  humiliate  and  discourage  the 
party.  They  had  lost  ten  States  which  General 
Pierce  had  carried  in  1852,  and  they  had  a  watchful, 
determined  foe  in  the  field,  eager  for  another  trial  of 
strength.  The  issue  was  made,  the  lines  in  battle 
were  drawn.     Freedom  or  slavery  in  the  Territories, 


228  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

all  was  to  be  fought  to  the  end,  without  flinching,  and 
without  compromise."1 

After  the  election  of  Buchanan,  the  next  great, 
portentous  event  in  the  anti-slavery  struggle  was 
Capt.  John  Brown's  sudden  attack  on  Harper's 
Ferry,  made  on  the  17th  of  October,  1858.  This  start- 
ling event  had  more  momentous  consequences  than 
even  the  Southern  or  the  anti-slavery  leaders  then 
clearly  saw.  It  roused  to  the  highest  pitch  the  feel- 
ings and  deepened  the  convictions  on  both  sides  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  and  doubtless  hastened  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 

On  the  30th  of  October,  while  the  imprisoned  John 
Brown  was  awaiting  his  trial,  Mr.  Beecher  preached 
a  notable  sermon  on  "  The  Nation's  Duty  to  Slavery," 
in  which,  while  maintaining  with  great  eloquence  the 
principles  of  freedom,  he  manifested  a  spirit  of  kind- 
ness and  forbearance  toward  the  South  which  con- 
trasted with  some  of  the  fiercer  utterances  of  the 
hour.  Utilizing  the  Harper's  Ferry  incident  and  the 
national  excitement  over  it,  he  made  some  very  prac- 
tical and  sensible  observations  on  the  present  state  of 
the  country.  After  portraying  the  amazement  and 
fear  of  Virginia  occasioned  by  the  falling  and  ex- 
ploding of  the  burning  aerolite  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
after  commenting  on  the  excitement  caused  by  the 
seventeen  white  men  who  attacked  the  great  State, 
and  held  two  thousand  citizens  in  duress  till  the 
whole  commonwealth  was  alarmed,  he  gave  a  de- 
scription of  the  courageous  fanatic  who  had  terrified 
a  great  people,  telling  how  Brown,  the  kind-hearted, 


1  Blaine's  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  130. 


TRUTH  ON  SCAFFOLD,  WRONG  ON  THRONE.  229 

industrious,  peace-loving  man,  with  a  large  family  of 
children,  had  sought  a  free  man's  home  in  Kansas. 
"  That  infant  colony  held  thousands  of  souls  as  noble 
as  liberty  ever  inspired  or  religion  enriched.  A  great 
scowling  slave  State,  its  nearest  neighbor,  sought  to 
tread  down  this  liberty-loving  colony,  and  to  dragoon 
slavery  into  it  by  force  of  arms." 

"  It  was  in  this  field  that  Brown  received  his  im- 
pulse. A  tender  father,  whose  life  was  in  his  son's 
life,  he  saw  his  first-born  seized  like  a  felon,  chained, 
driven  across  the  country,  crazed  by  suffering  and 
heat,  beaten  like  a  dog  by  the  officer  in  charge,  and 
long  lying  at  death's  door!  Another  noble  boy, 
without  warning,  without  offense,  unarmed,  in  open 
day,  in  the  midst  of  the  city,  was  shot  dead!  No 
justice  sought  out  the  murderers;  no  United  States 
attorney  was  despatched  in  hot  haste;  no  marines  or 
soldiers  aided  the  wronged  and  weak! 

"  The  shot  that  struck  the  child's  heart  crazed  the 
father's  brain.  Revolving  his  wrongs,  and  nursing 
his  hatred  of  that  deadly  system  that  breathed  such 
contempt  at  justice  and  humanity,  at  length  his 
phantoms  assume  a  slender  reality,  and  organized 
such  an  enterprise  as  one  might  expect  from  a  man 
whom  grief  had  bereft  of  good  judgment." ' 

After  praising  his  boldness,  honesty,  freedom  from 
deceit,  and  general  manliness,  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "I 
deplore  his  misfortunes.  I  sympathize  with  his  sor- 
rows. I  mourn  the  hiding  or  obscuration  of  his 
reason.  I  disapprove  of  his  mad  and  feeble  scheme. 
I  shrink   from    the    folly    of   the  bloody    foray,    and 


!"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  206. 


23O  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

I  shrink  likewise  from  all  the  anticipation  of  that 
judicial  bloodshed,  which  doubtless  eie  long  will 
follow — for  when  was  cowardice  ever  magnanimous  ? 
.  .  .  Let  no  man  pray  that  Brown  be  spared; 
let  Virginia  make  him  a  martyr.  Now,  he  has  only 
blundered.  His  soul  was  noble;  his  work  miserable. 
But  a  cord  and  a  gibbet  would  redeem  all  that  and 
round  up  Brown's  failure  with  a  heroic  success."  ' 

The  prophecy  was  more  than  fulfilled,  though  Mr. 
Beecher  little  dreamed  that  the  giant  wrong  which 
the  old  man  attacked  would  in  a  few  years  be  tramp- 
led out  in  blood  to  the  sublime  music  of  the  old 
man's  name. 

Mr.  Beecher  showed  the  insecurity  of  those  States 
that  "  carried  powder  as  their  chief  cargo."  With- 
out expressing  at  large  his  well-known  opinions  on 
the  great  evil  of  slavery,  he  wisely  urged  that  one's 
views  on  this  subject  might  be  right  and  yet  his 
views  of  duty  toward  it  might  be  wrong.  There  were 
unjustifiable  ways  of  attacking  even  slavery.  As 
four  millions  of  colored  slaves  dwelt  in  the  midst  of 
the  population  of  ten  millions  of  whites  in  fifteen 
different  States,  and  as  these  States  were  bound  up 
with  other  States  in  a  common  national  life,  he  held 
that  the  question  of  duty  was  not  simply  what  was 
duty  towards  blacks,  and  not  what  is  duty  toward 
the  whites,  but  what  is  duty  to  each  and  to  both 
united.  "  I  am  bound  by  the  great  law  of  love  to 
consider  my  duties  toward  the  slave,  and  I  am  bound 
by  the  great  law  of  love  also  to  consider  my  duties  to- 
ward the  white  man  who  is  his  master.     Both  are  to 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  207. 


TRUTH  ON  SCAFFOLD,  WRONG  ON  THRONE.  23I 

be  treated  with  Christian  wisdom  and  forbearance. 
We  must  seek  to  benefit  the  slave  as  well  as  the  white 
man,  and  the  white  man  as  really  as  the  slave."  ' 

He  endeavored  to  throw  some  clear  light  upon 
this  very  difficult  problem,  and  no  wiser  or  more 
Christian  words  were  spoken  at  that  time  than  his. 
He  showed,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  was  not  right  to 
treat  the  citizens  of  the  South  with  bitter  acrimony 
because  they  were  involved  in  a  system  of  wrong- 
doing. "  A  malignant  speech  about  slavery  will  not 
do  any  good;  and,  most  of  all,  it  will  not  do  those 
any  good  who  most  excite  our  sympathy — the  chil- 
dren of  bondage.  If  we  hope  to  ameliorate  the  con- 
dition of  the  slave,  the  first  step  must  not  be  taken 
by  setting  the  masters  against  them." 

In  the  next  place  he  taught  that  the  breeding  of 
discontent  among  the  bondmen  of  our  land  was  not 
the  right  way  to  help  them.  "  If  I  were  in  the  South, 
I  should,  not  from  fear  of  the  master,  but  from  the 
most  deliberate  sense  of  the  injurious  effects  of  it  to 
the  slave,  never  by  word  or  act  do  anything  to  excite 
discontent  among  those  who  were  in  slavery.  The 
condition  of  the  slave  must  be  changed,  but  the  change 
cannot  go  on  in  one  part  of  the  community  alone. 
There  must  be  change  in  the  law,  change  in  the 
Church,  change  in  the  upper  classes,  change  in  the 
middle,  and  in  all  classes.  Emancipation  when  it 
comes,  will  come  either  by  revolution  or  by  a  change 
of  public  opinion  in  the  whole  community."2 

In  the  third  place  he  showed  that  no  relief  would 
be  afforded  to  the  slaves  of  the  South  as  a  body,  by 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  209.  *•"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p,  211. 


232  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

an  individual  or  by  any  organized  plan  to  carry  them 
off,  or  to  incite  them  to  abscond.  "  The  more  enlight- 
ened and  liberty-loving  among  the  Southern  slaves 
bear  too  much  of  their  masters'  blood  not  to  avail 
themselves  of  any  opening  to  escape;  it  is  their  right; 
it  will  be  their  practice.  Free  locomotion  is  an  inci- 
dent of  slave-property  which  the  master  must  put  up 
with.  Nimble  legs  are  of  much  use  in  tempering  the 
severity  of  slavery.  If,  therefore,  an  enslaved  man, 
acting  from  the  yearnings  of  his  own  heart,  desires  to 
run  away,  who  shall  forbid  him?  In  all  the  earth, 
wherever  a  human  being  is  held  in  bondage,  he  has  a 
right  to  slough  his  burden  and  break  his  yoke  if  he 
can." 

"  I  stand  on  the  outside  of  this  great  cordon  of 
darkness,  and  every  man  that  escapes  from  it,  running 
for  his  life,  shall  have  some  help  from  me,  if  he  comes 
forth  of  his  own  free  accord;  yet  I  would  never  incite 
slaves  to  run  away,  or  send  any  other  man  to  do  it. 
We  have  no  right  to  carry  into  the  midst  of  slavery 
exterior  discontent;  and  for  this  reason:  that  it  is  not 
good  for  the  slaves  themse/ves."  ' 

"  Four  million  men  cannot  run  away,  until  God 
sends  ten  Egyptian  plagues  to  help  them." 

In  the  fourth  place,  he  would  not  tolerate  anything 
like  insurrection  and  civil  war.  "  It  is  bad  for  the 
master,  bad  for  the  slave,  bad  for  all  that  are  neigh- 
bors to  them,  bad  for  the  whole  land — bad  from  be- 
ginning to  end! " 2 

"According  to  God's  Word,  so  long  as  a  man  re- 
mains a  servant  he  must  obey  his  master.     The  right 


*"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  212.    s  "  Patriotic  Addresses, "p.  213. 


TRUTH  ON  SCAFFOLD,  WRONG  ON  THRONE.  233 

of  the  slave  to  throw  off  the  control  of  his  master  is 
not  abrogated.  The  right  of  the  subject  to  do  this  is 
neither  defined  nor  limited.  But  the  use  of  this  right 
must  conform  to  reason,  and  not  to  mere  impulse. 
The  leaders  of  a  people  have  no  right  to  whelm  their 
helpless  followers  in  terrible  disaster  by  inciting  them 
to  rebel,  under  circumstances  that  afford  not  the 
slightest  hope  that  their  rebellion  will  rise  to  the 
dignity  of  a  successful  revolution. 

"This  has  been  the  eminent  wisdom  of  that  Hun- 
garian exile,  Kossuth.  In  spite  of  all  that  is  written 
and  said  against  this  noble  man,  I  stand  to  my  first 
full  faith  in  him.  The  uncrowned  hero  is  the  noblest 
man,  after  all,  in  Europe!  And  his  statesmanship 
has  been  shown  in  this:  that  his  burning  sense  of  the 
right  of  his  people  to  be  free  has  not  led  him  to  incite 
them  to  premature,  partial,  and  easily  overmatched 
revolt."1 

"  Now,  if  the  Africans  in  our  land  were  intelligent, 
if  they  understood  themselves,  if  they  had  self-govern- 
ing power,  if  they  were  able  first  to  throw  off  the 
yoke  of  adverse  laws  and  institutions,  and  afterwards 
defend  and  build  themselves  up  into  a  civil  state,  they 
would  have  just  the  same  right  to  assume  their  inde- 
pendence that  any  nation  has.  But  does  any  man 
believe  that  this  is  the  case  ?  "2 

Turning  from  these  specifications  as  to  the  wrong 
way  to  deal  with  slavery,  he  expressed  his  mind  freely 
as  to  the  right  way.  He  believed,  first,  in  beginning 
at  the  North  and  emancipating  the  colored  men  near 
at  home.     "  How  are  the  free  colored  people  treated 


1  "Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  214.    2  "Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  215. 


234  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

at  the  North?  They  are  almost  without  education, 
and  with  but  little  sympathy  for  their  ignorance. 
They  are  refused  the  common  rights  of  citizenship 
which  the  whites  enjoy.  They  cannot  even  ride  in 
the  cars  of  our  city  railroads.  They  are  snuffed  at  in 
the  house  of  God,  or  tolerated  with  ill-concealed 
disgust.  Can  a  black  man  be  a  mason  in  New  York? 
Let  him  be  employed  as  a  journeyman,  and  every 
Irish  lover  of  liberty  that  carried  a  hod  or  trowel 
would  leave  at  once,  or  compel  him  to  leave!  Can 
the  black  man  be  a  carpenter?  There  is  scarcely  a 
carpenter's  shop  in  New  York  in  which  a  journeyman 
would  continue  to  work  if  a  black  man  were  employed 
in  it.  We  tax  them,  and  then  refuse  to  allow 

their  children  to  go  to  our  public  schools.  We  heap 
upon  them  moral  obloquy  more  atrocious  than  that 
which  the  master  heaps  upon  the  slave.  And,  not- 
withstanding all  this,  we  lift  ourselves  up  to  talk  to 
the  Southern  people  about  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
the  human  soul,  and  especially  the  African  soul  !  " 

"  Every  effort  that  is  made  in  Brooklyn  to  establish 
schools  and  churches  for  the  free  colored  people,  and 
to  encourage  them  to  educate  themselves,  and  be- 
come independent,  is  a  step  toward  emancipation  in 
the  South.  The  degradation  of  free  colored  men  in 
the  North  will  fortify  slavery  in  the  South  !  "  ] 

In  the  next  place,  he  believed  that  all  the  springs 
of  feeling  in  the  free  States  should  be  quickened  in 
behalf  of  human  liberty.  "  Liberty  with  us  must  be 
raised  by  religion  from  the  selfishness  of  an  instinct 
to   the    sanctity    of   a    moral   principle!     .     .     .     We 


"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  216-217. 


TRUTH  ON  SCAFFOLD,  WRONG  ON  THRONE.  235 

must  inspire  in  the  public  mind  a  profound  sense  of 
the  rights  of  men  founded  upon  their  relations  to 
God.  The  glory  of  intelligence,  refinement,  genius, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  men's  rights.  The  rice  slave, 
the  Hottentot,  are  as  mnch  God's  children  as  Hum- 
boldt or  Chalmers." 

"  What  can  the  North  do  for  the  South,  unless  her 
own  heart  is  purified  and  ennobled  ?  When  the  love 
of  liberty  is  at  so  low  an  ebb  that  Churches  dread  the 
sound,  ministers  shrink  from  the  topic;  when  book- 
publishers  dare  not  publish  or  republish  a  word  on 
the  subject  of  slavery,  cut  out  every  living  word  from 
school  books,  expurgate  life-passages  from  Humboldt, 
Spurgeon,  and  all  foreign  authors  or  teachers;  and 
when  great  religious  publication  societies,  endowed 
for  the  very  purpose  of  speaking  fearlessly  the  truths 
which  interest  would  let  perish,  pervert  their  trusts, 
and  are  dumb,  first  and  chiefly,  and  articulate  only  in 
things  that  thousands  of  others  could  publish  as  well 
as  they — what  chance  is  there  that  public  sentiment 
in  such  a  community  will  have  any  power  with  the 
South?"1 

In  the  third  place,  he  advocated,  in  every  way  con- 
sistent with  fearless  assertion  of  truth,  the  mainte- 
nance of  sympathetic  kindness  toward  the  South. 
"We  are  brethren;  and  I  pray  that  no  fratricidal 
influences  be  permitted  to  sunder  this  Union.  There 
was  a  time  when  I  thought  the  body  of  death  would 
be  too  much  for  life,  and  that  the  North  was  in 
danger  of  taking  disease  from  the  South,  rather  than 
they  our  health.     That  time  has  gone  past."     "  I  am 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  218. 


2$6  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

for  holding  the  heart  of  the  North  right  up  to  the 
heart  of  the  South.  Every  heart-beat  will  be,  ere 
long,  not  a  blow  riveting  oppression,  but  a  throb 
carrying  new  health."  ' 

In  the  fourth  place  he  urged  that  no  pains  be 
spared,  through  the  Christian  conscience  of  the  South, 
to  give  to  the  slave  himself  a  higher  moral  status. 
"  If  you  wish  to  work  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
African,  seek  to  make  him  a  better  man.  Teach  him 
to  be  an  obedient  servant,  and  an  honest,  true,  Chris- 
tian man.  .  .  .  To  make  a  slave  morose,  fractious, 
disobedient,  and  unwilling  to  work  is  the  way  to 
defer  his  emancipation.  We  do  not  ask  the  slave 
to  be  satisfied  with  slavery.  .  .  .  It  is  the  low 
animal  condition  of  the  African  that  enslaves  him. 
It  is  moral  enfranchisement  that  will  break  his 
bonds."  2 

In  the  fifth  place,  he  proceeded  to  show  that  the 
things  promoting  emancipation  were  not  so  compli- 
cated or  numerous  as  some  people  imagined.  "A  few 
virtues  established,  a  few  usages  maintained,  a  few 
rights  guaranteed  to  the  slaves,  and  the  system  is 
vitally  wounded.  The  right  of  chastity  in  the  woman, 
the  unblemished  household  love,  the  right  of  parents 
in  their  children — on  these  three  elements  stands  the 
whole  weight  of  society."  "  I  stand  up  in  behajf  of 
two  million  women  who  are  without  a  voice,  to  declare 
that  there  ought  to  be  found  in  Christianity,  some- 
where, an  influence  which  shall  protect  their  right  to 
their  own  persons,  and   that  their  purity  shall  stand 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  219. 

2  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  219-220 


TRUTH  ON  SCAFFOLD,  WRONG  ON  THRONE.  237 

on   some   other   ground    than    the    caprice    of   their 
masters."1 

"  I  declare  that  there  must  be  a  Christian  public 
sentiment  that  shall  make  the  family  inviolate.  Men 
sometimes  say,  '  It  is  rarely  the  case  that  families  are 
separated.'  It  is  false!  It  is  false!  There  is  not  a 
slave-mart  that  does  not  bear  testimony,  a  thousand 
times  over,  against  such  an  assertion.  Children  are 
bred  like  colts  and  calves,  and  are  dispersed  like 
them."  "  The  moment  you  make  slaves  serfs,  they  are 
no  longer  a  legal  tender,  and  are  uncurrent  in  the 
market;  and  families  are  so  cumbrous,  so  difficult  to 
support,  so  expensive,  that  owners  are  compelled, 
from  reasons  of  pecuniary  interest,  to  discontinue  the 
system."  a 

And,  finally,  among  the  means  to  be  employed  for 
promoting  the  liberty  of  the  slave,  he  did  not  fail  to 
include  the  power  of  true  Christian  prayer.  Mr.  John 
R.  Howard,  in  his  review  of  Mr.  Beecher's  personality 
and  political  influence,  has  said  :  "  No  Southerner 
to-day  would  be  able  to  dissent  from  his  doctrine  as 
expounded  in  that  discourse,  or  could  help  a  warming 
of  heart  toward  a  man  who,  in  the  midst  of  such  a 
tempest  of  popular  excitement  along  the  line  of  prin- 
ciples which  he  himself  had  done  so  much  to  inspire, 
could  yet  so  temperately  and  considerately  and  Chris- 
tianly  stretch  forth  the  restraining  hand  of  wisdom." 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  220-221. 
*  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  221-222. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

BEECHER    THE    EMANCIPATOR. 

Mr.  Beecher's  influence  was  daily  enlarging  at  the 
North.  The  two  most  influential  journalists  of  the 
Republican  party,  Horace  Greeley  and  Henry  J.  Ray- 
mond, took  frequent  counsel  with  him  in  regard  to 
public  policy.  As  a  practical  Abolitionist  he  was 
probably  the  most  effective  man  in  the  country. 

His  aid  in  freeing  the  Edmonson  sisters,  as  early  as 
1848,  has  already  been  noted,  but  this  was  only  one 
of  many  successful  efforts  to  buy  the  liberty  of  his 
brothers  and  sisters  in  bondage.  "  I  was  always  glad, 
at  suitable  times,"  he  said  to  his  own  people,  "  as  often 
as  was  proper,  to  bring  before  you  living  men  and 
women,  and  let  them  stand  and  look  at  you  in  the 
face,  that  you  might  see  what  sort  of  creatures  slaves 
were  made  of.  I  was  glad  by  every  means  in  my  power 
to  arouse  men's  feelings  against  the  abomination  of 
slavery,  which  I  hated  with  an  unutterable  hatred." 

A  slave  girl,  named  "  Pink,"  or  "  Pinkie,"  "  too  fair 
and  beautiful  a  child  for  her  own  good,"  was  brought 
to  his  attention  as  one  whom  he  might  help  to  pur- 
chase and  thus  save  from  the  hell  of  transportation  to 
the  far  Southern  slave-market.  She  was  brought 
North  and  placed  by  him  on  the  platform  of  Plymouth 
Church.     "  And   the  rain   never  fell   faster  than    the 


BEECHER    THE    EMANCIPATOR.  239 

tears  from  many  of  you  that  were  here.  The  scene 
was  one  of  intense  enthusiasm.  The  child  was  bought, 
and  overbought.  The  collection  that  was  taken  on 
the  spot  was  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to  pur- 
chase her.  It  so  happened  (it  is  not  wrong  to  men- 
tion now)  that  a  lady  known  to  literary  fame  as  Miss 
Rose  Terry  was  present;  and  as,  like  many  others, 
she  had  not  with  her  as  much  money  as  she  wanted 
to  give,  she  took  a  ring  off  from  her  hand  and  threw 
it  into  the  contribution-box.  That  ring  I  took  and 
put  it  into  the  child's  hand,  and  said  to  her  :  '  Now 
remember,  that  this  is  your  freedom-ring.'  Her  ex- 
pression, as  she  stood  and  looked  at  it  for  a  moment, 
was  pleasing  to  behold;  and  Eastman  Johnson,  the 
artist,  was  so  much  interested  in  the  occurrence  that 
he  determined  to  represent  it  on  canvas,  and  he 
painted  her  looking  at  her  freedom-ring;  and  I  have 
a  transcript  of  the  picture  now  at  my  house."  ' 

She  was  afterwards  called  Rose  Ward,  Rose  from 
the  name  of  the  lady  who  gave  the  beautiful  opal  ring 
and  Ward  from  Mr.  Beecher's  second  name.  He 
raised  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  to  give  her  a 
year's  schooling  in  the  Lincoln  University  at  Wash- 
ington. 

One  of  the  most  thrilling  scenes  in  Plymouth  Church 
occurred  on  June  i,  1856.  Mr.  Beecher  prefaced  what 
he  was  about  to  do  and  justified  it  by  reading  from 
the  Gospels  the  story  of  what  Jesus  wrought  on  the 
Sabbath  Day,  in  healing  the  man  with  the  withered 
hand;  and  then  he  told  of  a  young  woman  who  was 
to  be  sold  by  her  own  father  "  to  go  South — for  what 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  296. 


240  HENRY   WARD     BEECHER. 

purpose  you  can  imagine,  when  you  see."  The  slave- 
trader  who  bought  her  for  twelve  hundred  dollars  was 
moved  to  offer  her  the  opportunity  of  purchasing  her 
freedom,  giving  one  hundred  dollars  himself  and  per- 
suading two  others  to  give  a  hundred  dollars  each. 
Through  the  kindness  of  free-State  men  in  Washing- 
ton she  had  been  able  to  add  four  hundred  dollars 
to  her  ransom  money,  and  Mr.  Beecher  was  asked  to 
raise  what  remained,  which  he  promised  to  do  on 
condition  that  she  were  permitted  to  come  North. 
She  gave  her  word  of  honor  that  she  would  return  to 
Richmond  in  case  the  money  was  not  all  forthcoming. 

Going  to  the  stairs  that  lead  up  to  the  platform, 
Mr.  Beecher  said:  "Come  up  here,  Sarah,  and  let  us 
all  see  you."  The  young  woman  ascended  the  steps, 
and,  much  embarrassed,  sank  down  into  the  chair. 
"The  white  blood  of  her  father  might  be  traced  in 
her  regular  features  and  high,  thoughtful  brow,  while 
her  complexion  and  wavy  hair  betrayed  her  slave 
mother.  'And  this,'  said  Mr.  Beecher,  '  is  a  market- 
able commodity.  Such  as  she  are  put  into  one  balance 
and  silver  into  the  other.  She  is  now  legally  free, 
but  she  is  bound  by  a  moral  obligation  which  is 
stronger  than  any  law.  I  reverence  woman.  For 
the  sake  of  the  love  I  bore  my  mother,  I  hold  her 
sacred,  even  in  the  lowest  position,  and  will  use  every 
means  in  my  power  for  her  uplifting.  What  will  you 
do  now  ?     May  she  read  her  liberty  in  your  eyes  ? '  " ' 

The  plates  were  passed,  and  soon  filled.  Amid 
their  tears  the  congregation  had  the  joy  of  giving 
liberty.      Mr.  Lewis  Tappan    finally  rose,  and    said 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  2c 


BEECHER    THE    EMANCIPATOR.  24I 

that  there  need  be  no  anxiety  about  the  result  of  the 
effort,  as  some  gentlemen  had  pledged  themselves  to 
make  up  the  deficiency  whatever  it  might  be.  After 
the  announcement  had  been  made  that  the  act  of 
emancipation  was  completed,  and  the  involuntary 
applause  had  subsided,  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "  When  the 
old  Jews  went  up  to  their  solemn  feast,  they  made 
the  mountains  round  about  Jerusalem  ring  with  their 
shouts.  I  do  not  approve  of  an  unholy  clapping  in 
the  house  of  God,  but  when  a  good  deed  is  well  done, 
it  is  not  wrong  to  give  an  outward  expression  of  our 
joy."  Then  the  congregation  sang  a  hymn,  perhaps 
as  it  was  never  sung  before: 

"  Do  not  I  love  Thee,  O,  my  Lord  ? 
Behold  my  heart  and  see ; 
And  turn  the  dearest  idol  out 
That  dares  to  rival  Thee. 

Hast  Thou  a  lamb  in  all  thy  flock 
I  would  disdain  to  feed  ? 
Hast  Thou  a  foe  before  whose  face 
I  fear  Thy  cause  to  plead?" 

It  was  found  that  seven  hundred  and  eighty-three 
dollars  had  been  given,  so  that  not  only  the  woman 
but  her  two  years'  old  child  could  be  redeemed. 

Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt,  of  Chicago,  gives  the  following 
reminiscences:  "In  September,  i860,  I  first  visited  my 
brother  in  New  York;  on  Sunday  morning  he  took 
me  to  Mr.  Beecher's  church.  I  recall  what  is  so 
familiar  to  all  who  attended  that  church;  the  crowds 
that  left  the  ferry-boat,  and  went  up  Fulton  street,  so 
that  the  answer  one  received  generally,  if  he  asked 
the  way  to  Mr.  Beecher's  church  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, at  any  time  after  ten  o'clock  on  leaving  the  ferry, 
16 


242  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

was, '  Follow  the  crowd.'  I  was  impressed  as  I  never 
was  before  with  the  power  of  pulpit  oratory.  I 
remember  how  the  vast  throng  listened  to  every 
word  —  recall  the  atmosphere  during  the  prayer, 
which  always  seemed  different  in  Plymouth  Church 
from  that  of  any  other.  .  .  .  During  the  days  of 
the  Civil  War,  there  were  scenes  in  Plymouth  Church 
that  impressed  themselves  upon  the  attendants  for 
all  time.  Mr.  Beecher  preached  patriotic  sermons 
constantly,  and  if  one  had  not  been  taught  to  love 
freedom  before,  he  could  only  become  a  lover  of 
liberty,  and  learn  to  hate  the  institution  of  slavery 
under  such  influences." 

"  One  Sunday  morning  he  had  baptized  a  large 
number  of  children,  twenty  or  more;  he  then  took  a 
little  white  child,  with  a  beautiful  face  and  curly 
hair,  and  went  into  the  pulpit,  and  stood  for  a 
moment  there;  the  congregation  looked  upon  the 
scene  with  surprise  and  curiosity.  Then  he  said:  'I 
have  brought  this  child  into  the  pulpit  for  I  wished  it 
to  teach  a  moral  lesson.'  There  was  deathlike  silence 
and  suspense  for  a  moment  or  two;  then  he  said: 
'This  child  was  born  a  slave,  and  has  just  been  re- 
deemed from  slavery.'  He  went  on  to  relate  that  one 
of  the  nurses  in  our  army  had  found  the  child  in  Vir- 
ginia, and  had  sent  her  to  Brooklyn  to  him;  he  had 
found  a  home  for  it  in  a  wealthy  family  where  she  was 
to  be  cared  for  and  educated.  Dr.  Lord,  president  of 
Dartmouth  College,  had  lately  written  a  book  upon 
slavery  as  a  Divine  institution.  Mr.  Beecher  said: 
'When  I  see  a  drabbled  woman  upon  Broadway, 
when  I  meet  a  man  who  has  been  wrecked,  I  feel  as 
if  I  could  lay  down  my  life  for  them,  if   necessary,  to 


BEECHER    THE    EMANCIPATOR.  243 

save  them;  but  when  I  read  a  book  written  by  a 
hoary-headed  president  of  a  college,  intended  to 
extol  an  institution  that  would  consign  a  child  like 
this  to  a  life  worse  than  death,  I  curse  him,  in  the 
name  of  my  God.'  The  congregation,  their  feelings 
wrought  to  the  highest  pitch,  broke  forth  into 
applause,  and  when  it  had  subsided,  Mr.  Beecher  put 
his  hand  upon  the  child's  head,  and  said:  'Anna, 
blossom  of  liberty,  I  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
Amen.'  There  was  not  a  dry  eye  in  the  congrega- 
tion, and  a  lesson  of  freedom  was  taught  by  that 
scene  that  scores  of  sermons  would  fail  to  teach.  The 
child  was  reared  and  educated  in  a  Brooklyn  family, 
and  became  a  beautiful,  cultivated  woman,  a  fine 
singer,  and  an  ornament  to  society." 

Mr.  Pratt  also  recalls  the  following:  "  Twenty  years 
later,  or  more,  in  talking  with  Mr.  Beecher  upon  the 
services  in  his  church  during  the  war,  I  mentioned 
this  scene  as  one  of  the  most  interesting  to  me;  he 
recalled  it,  and  said  that  with  one  exception,  perhaps, 
it  was  the  most  thrilling  scene  ever  enacted  in  his 
church.  He  then  read  me  the  story  of  the  purchase 
of  a  slave  in  Plymouth  Church,  and  stated  that  he 
could  never  tell  this  story  and  control  himself.  This 
last  remark  he  made  upon  my  request  that  he  tell  the 
story  in  the  lecture  he  was  to  deliver  that  evening  at 
Central  Music  Hall,  in  which  he  was  to  give  an 
account  of  his  trip  across  the  continent,  and  return 
through  the  South,  including  a  visit  to  New  Orleans. 
I  will  repeat  it  here,  as  Mr.  Beecher  told  it  to  me, 
according  to  my  best  recollection  of  it.  He  stated 
that  a  female  slave  had  escaped  from  her  master,  and 


244  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

had  reached  Brooklyn;  she  had  been  found,  and 
under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  could  be  returned  to 
New  Orleans,  her  home.  Mr.  Beecher  made  inquiry 
as  to  her  value,  and  word  came  to  him  from  her 
owner  at  New  Orleans,  that  if  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
would  promise  that  either  the  woman  or  two  thou- 
sand dollars  should  reach  New  Orleans  in  ten  days, 
he  would  be  satisfied  with  that  promise,  and  would 
let  the  matter  take  its  course. 

"  Mr.  Beecher  sent  back  word  that  either  the  two 
thousand  dollars  or  the  woman  should  be  in  New 
Orleans  by  that  time.  He  said  to  me  that  he  was 
pleased  that  a  slaveholder  who  naturally  hated  and 
distrusted  him  should  show  this  confidence  in  him. 
On  the  following  Sunday  morning  the  woman  was 
taken  to  Plymouth  Church.  At  the  close  of  the 
sermon  Mr.  Beecher  turned  to  her  as  she  sat  near  the 
pulpit  and  said,  'Eliza,  I  wish  you  would  come  on 
the  platform.'  She  walked  up  and  stood  by  his  side  : 
a  beautiful  woman  with  an  intelligent  face,  and  as  she 
stood  there  she  trembled  like  a  leaf.  He  turned  to 
the  congregation  and  said  :  'This  woman  is  a  slave, 
and  I  have  promised  her  owner  at  New  Orleans  that 
either  she  or  two  thousand  dollars,  which  is  her  stated 
value,  shall  be  in  New  Orleans  within  ten  days.  Is 
there  a  father  here  who  has  a  daughter,  is  there  a 
husband  or  a  brother  here  who  will  say  that  this 
woman  shall  go  back  to  slavery?  I  wish  to  raise  the 
two  thousand  dollars  in  this  congregation  this  morn- 
ing.' He  had  hardly  spoken  these  words  before  some 
one  said,  '  I  will  give  one  hundred  dollars';  another, 
'  I  will  give  a  hundred,'  and  another  and  another,  and 
before  he  put  down  the  names  they  had  subscribed 


BEECHER    THE    EMANCIPATOR.  245 

over  half  the  amount  so  rapidly  that  he  could  not 
keep  count,  when  Russell  Sage  rose  and  said  :  '  Mr. 
Beecher,  I  will  give  the  balance  whatever  it  may  be.' 
Mr.  Beecher  turned  to  the  woman  and  said,  '  Eliza, 
you  are  a  free  woman.'  She  sank  down  in  a  chair 
upon  the  platform  and  wept  like  a  child,  while  the 
whole  congregation  was  in  tears." 

After  John  Brown's  raid  into  Virginia  the  tide  of 
events  swept  on  rapidly  toward  the  Civil  War.  In 
1858  had  occurred  the  memorable  debate  between 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  which  brought  the  future  eman- 
cipator into  national  prominence,  and  had  won  the 
intelligent  admiration  of  keen-sighted  men,  such,  for 
example,  as  James  Russell  Lowell.  In  1859  Mr.  Lin- 
coln came  to  New  York  and  delivered  the  famous 
address  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  wherein  he  showed 
how  unbroken  was  the  testimony  of  the  fathers  of 
the  Republic  against  the  extension  of  slavery.  Mr. 
Beecher  met  Lincoln  at  that  time.  The  Illinois  lawyer 
attended  the  services  in  Plymouth  Church  and  these 
two  great  leaders  of  the  people  dined  together  at  the 
house  of  a  friend. 

The  next  year,  i860,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nominated  by 
the  Republican  National  Convention  in  Chicago. 
Mr.  Beecher  might  easily  have  been  sent  as  a  delegate- 
at-large  from  New  York  to  that  historic  Convention,  l 
but,  unlike  Mr.  Raymond,  Governor  Morgan,  Mr. 
Evarts,  and  George  William  Curtis,  and  the  whole 
delegation  from  the  Empire  State,  he  did  not  favor 
the  nomination  of  Mr.  Seward,  who  seemed  to  him  to 
have  more  head  than  heart.  Mr.  Raymond,  a  warm 
friend  of  Beecher's,  was  one  of  the  delegates  to  the 
Convention.     Overlooking  a  despatch  which  one  of 


246  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

the  representatives  of  the  New  York  Times  was  mak- 
ing ready  for  that  paper,  Mr.  Raymond  drew  his  pen 
through  that  part  of  it  which  predicted  Seward's 
defeat  and  Lincoln's  nomination,  and  when  he  had 
changed  it  he  said  ;  "  I  would  not  have  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  read  that  dispatch  for  a  thousand  dollars." 

"  One  of  the  first  to  call  upon  Mr.  Raymond  in  the 
Times  office  upon  his  return  from  Chicago  was  Mr. 
Beecher,  then  in  the  very  prime  of  mental  and  physical 
strength.  With  a  laugh  that  was  almost  a  roar,  he 
burst  into  the  editorial-room  where  Mr.  Raymond 
sat,  his  chair  tilted  upon  its  two  forelegs,  and  grasp- 
ing him  cordially,  heartily,  vigorously,  said  :  '  Young 
man,  I  know  the  people  of  this  country  at  heart 
better  than  you  do.  Your  friend  Seward  has  too 
much  head  and  too  little  heart  to  succeed  in  any  such 
crisis  as  this.' 

"'And  yours,'  replied  Mr.  Raymond,  '  I  fear,  has 
too  much  heart  and  too  little  head  for  such  a  crisis 
as  will  surely  be  precipitated.' 

"  '  Trust,  then,'  replied  Mr.  Beecher,  '  in  God,  and 
keep  your  powder  dry.'  "  ] 

Mr.  Beecher's  labors  for  the  success  of  the  Repub- 
lican nominee  in  1856  were  not  more  intense  and 
vigorous  than  his  efforts  to  bring  about  the  election 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  With  pen  and  tongue  he  de- 
voted himself  to  popularizing  liberty  in  the  North 
and  arousing  that  conscience  and  deepening  that 
conviction  which  ultimately  gave  strength  and  suc- 
cess to  the  mighty  battle  for  Liberty  and  Union  so 
soon  to  be  opened  by  the  shot  against  Sumter. 


1  "  Life  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  by  Joseph  Howard,  Jr.,  p.  377. 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

STEERING    BY    THE    DIVINE    COMPASS. 

The  Republican  party  were  successful.  "  For  the 
first  time,"  as  Wendell  Phillips  said,  "  the  slave  had 
elected  a  President."  The  crisis  hastened  on.  One 
State  after  another  in  the  South,  by  the  act  of  State 
conventions,  voted  itself  out  of  the  Union.  Cabinet 
officers  and  Congressmen  left  Washington,  and  aided 
in  organizing  the  Confederate  government.  All  that 
the  fathers  had  built,  the  work  of  Washington,  and 
the  consummate  sagacity  of  Alexander  Hamilton, 
seemed  falling  into  ruin.  The  compromises  which 
Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster  had  championed, 
were  bulrushes,  torn  away  by  the  fierce  Niagara  of 
secession  sentiment  and  purpose.  The  right  to 
coerce  a  rebelling  State  was  denied  even  by  influen- 
tial journals  at  the  North,  and  base  and  futile  com- 
promises were  freely  advocated  by  those  who  felt 
that  peace  and  Union  were  more  precious  than  any 
surrender  of  principle,  however,  infamous  and 
cowardly. 

Mr.  Beecher's  great  Thanksgiving  sermon  for  this 
year  was  a  far-sounding  trumpet-blast  against  any 
compromising  of  principle.  Choosing  for  his  text 
the  words  with  which  Jesus  began  His  public  ministry 
— "The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He 
hath  anointed  Me  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor," 


248  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

he  declared  that  national  prosperity  is  a  snare  if  the 
people  are  ignorant,  the  poor  are  cast  down  and 
oppression  is  triumphant.  After  giving  thanks  for 
the  national  mercies  of  the  year,  he  said  that  all  the 
sons  of  God  rejoice  and  all  good  men  rejoice.  "  The 
Mayor  of  New  York,  in  a  public  proclamation,  in  view 
of  this  prodigal  year,  that  has  heaped  the  poor  man's 
house  with  abundance,  is  pleased  to  say  that  there  is 
no  occasion  apparent  to  him  for  thanksgiving.  We 
can  ask  no  more.  When  bad  men  grieve  at  the  state 
of  public  affairs,  good  men  should  rejoice.  When 
infamous  men  keep  fast,  righteous  men  should  have 
thanksgiving.  God  reigns,  and  the  devil  trembles. 
Amen.     Let  us  rejoice  !  "  ' 

After  glancing  at  such  reasons  for  thanksgiving 
as  the  increasing  influence  of  liberty-loving  nations 
in  the  world,  the  emergence  of  the  common  people 
into  power,  the  resurrection  of  Italy,  the  growing 
moderation  of  the  Russian  monarchy,  the  increasing 
vigor  of  Christian  nations,  and  the  reassertion  of  the 
principles  of  justice  and  liberty  in  America,  he  said  : 
"The  tree  of  Life,  whose  leaves  were  for  the  healing 
of  the  nations,  has  been  evilly  dealt  with.  Its  boughs 
have  been  lopped,  and  its  roots  starved  till  the  fruit 
is  knurly.  Upon  its  top  had  been  set  scions  of  bitter 
fruits,  that  grew  and  sucked  out  all  the  sap  from  the 
better  branches.  Upon  its  trunk  the  wild  boar  of  the 
forest  had  whetted  his  tusks. 

"But  now  again  it  blooms.  Its  roots  have  found 
the  river,  and  shall  not  want  again  for  moisture  ; 
the  grafts  of  poisonous  fruits  have  been  broken  off  or 


"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  226. 


STEERING    BY   THE   DIVINE   COMPASS  249 

have  been  blown  out;  mighty  spearmen  have  hunted 
the  wild  swine  back  to  his  thickets,  and  the  hedge 
shall  be  broken  down  no  more  round  about  it.  The  air 
is  fragrant  in  its  opening  buds,  the  young  fruit  is 
setting.  God  has  returned  and  looked  upon  it,  and 
behold,  summer  is  in  all  its  branches  !  "  ' 

But  the  preacher  saw  a  threatening  and  terrible 
background  to  this  beautiful  picture  of  the  tree  of 
liberty  re-budded  and  full  of  promising  fruit.  "  The 
clouds  lie  lurid  along  the  Southern  horizon.  The 
Caribbean  Sea,  that  breeds  tornadoes  and  whirlwinds, 
has  heaped  up  treasures  of  storms  portentous  that 
seem  about  to  break.  Let  them  break  !  God  has 
appointed  their  bounds." 

There  was  no  safety  for  the  nation  except  in  cling- 
ing to  the  great  universal  principles  of  truth  and 
duty.  "Vainglory  will  destroy  us.  Pride  will  wreck 
us.  Above  all,  the  fear  of  doing  right  will  be  fatal. 
But  Justice  and  Liberty  are  pilots  that  do  not  lose 
their  craft.  They  steer  by  a  Divine  compass.  They 
know  the  hand  that  holds  the  winds  and  the  storms. 
It  is  always  safe  to  be  right;  and  our  business  is  not 
so  much  to  seek  peace  as  to  seek  the  causes  of  peace."  2 

The  nation's  prosperity  had  its  beginning  and  con- 
tinuance in  natural  laws,  and  no  true  prosperity  was 
assured  if  the  people  set  their  faces  against  Divine 
principle.  "  While  papers  and  parties  are  in  full  out- 
cry, and  nostrums  are  advertised,  and  scared  politi- 
cians are  at  their  wits'  end  (without  having  gone  far, 
either),  and  men  of  weak  minds  are  beside  themselves, 
and  imbeciles  stand  doubting  in  the  streets,  know  ye 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  228.   2  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  229. 


250  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

that  the  way  of  peace  is  simple,  accessible,  and  easy. 
Be  still.  Stand  firm  !  Have  courage  to  wait.  Money 
is  insane.  Fear  is  death.  Faith  in  justice  and  in 
rectitude,  and  trust  in  God  will  work  out  safety." 

"Thirty  pieces  of  silver  bought  Christ,  and  hung 
Judas.  If  you  sell  your  convictions  to  fear,  you 
give  yourself  to  a  vagabond.  If  you  sell  your  con- 
science to  Interest,  you  traffic  with  a  fiend.  The 
fear  of  doing  right  is  the  grand  treason  in  times  of 
danger.  When  you  consent  to  give  up  your  convic- 
tions of  justice,  humanity,  and  liberty,  for  the  sake  of 
tranquility,  you  are  like  men  who  buy  a  treacherous 
truce  of  tyrants  by  giving  up  their  weapons  of  war. 
Cowards  are  the  food  of  despots. 

"When  a  storm  is  on  the  deep,  and  the  ship  labors, 
men  throw  over  the  deck-load,  they  cast  forth  the 
heavy  freights,  and  ride  easier  as  their  merchandise 
grows  less.  But  in  our  time  men  propose  to  throw 
overboard  the  compass,  the  charts,  the  chronometer 
and  sextant,  but  to  keep  the  freight  ! "  1 

In  this  memorable  discourse,  Mr.  Beecher,  as  so 
often,  argued  convincingly  by  means  of  illustration. 
He  urged  the  folly  of  being  fearful  of  excitement,  for 
he  believed  that  amongst  Christians,  civilized  people, 
excitement  works  upward  and  toward  peace.  "  The 
rush  of  life,  the  vigor  of  earnest  men,  the  conflict  of 
realties,  invigorate,  cleanse,  and  establish  truth.  Our 
only  fear  should  be  lest  we  refuse  God's  work.  He 
has  appointed  this  people,  and  our  day,  for  one  of 
those  world-battles  on  which  ages  turn.  Ours  is  a 
pivotal  period.     The  strife  is   between   a  dead  past 


"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  230-231. 


STEERING    BY    THE    DIVINE    COMPASS.  251 

and  a  living  future;  between  a  wasting  evil  and  a 
nourishing  good;  between  Barbarism  and  Civiliza- 
tion:' l 

The  North  and  South  must  each  reap  from  the 
seed  they  have  sown.  "  It  is  this  that  convulses  the 
South.  They  wish  to  reap  fruits  of  liberty  from  the  seed 
of  slavery.  They  wish  to  have  an  institution  which 
sets  at  naught  the  laws  of  God,  and  yet  be  as  refined 
and  prosperous  and  happy  as  we  are,  who  obey  these 
laws;  and  since  they  cannot,  they  demand  that  we  shall 
make  up  to  them  what  they  lack."  "  The  Southern 
States,  then,  have  organized  society  around  a  rotten 
core— slavery;  the  North  has  organized  society  about 
a  vital  heart — liberty.  At  length  both  stand  mature." 
"The  time  is  come  in  which  they  are  so  brought  into 
contact  that  the  principle  of  the  one  or  the  principle 
of  the  other  must  yield.  Liberty  must  discrown 
her  fair  head;  she  must  lay  her  opal  crown  and  her 
diamond  scepter  upon  the  altar  of  Oppression;  or  else 
Oppression  must  shrink,  and  veil  its  head  and  depart. 
Which  shall  it  be?"  "The  distinctive  idea  of  the 
free  States  is  Christian  civilization,  and  the  peculiar 
institutions  of  civilization.  The  distinctive  idea  of 
the  South  is  barbaric  institutions.  In  the  North 
mind,  and  in  the  South  force,  rules."  2 

Only  three  courses  were  possible,  either  to  go  over 
to  the  South,  or  to  compromise  principles,  or  to  main- 
tain principles  upon  just  and  constitutional  grounds 
and  abide  the  issue.  The  first  course  was  both  infa- 
mous and  impossible.     The  North  would  not  change 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  232. 

2  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  233-234. 


252  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

its  convictions,  and,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  efface  the 
distinctive  features  of  Liberty  from  its  statute-book. 
As  to  compromising  principles,  that  was  going  over 
to  the  South  in  a  meaner  way.  "We  are  told  that 
Satan  appears  under  two  forms  that  when  he  has  a 
good,  fair  field,  he  is  out  like  a  lion,  roaring  and  seek- 
ing whom  he  may  devour  ;  but  that  when  he  can  do 
nothing  more  in  that  way  he  is  a  serpent,  and  sneaks 
in  the  grass.  And  so,  it  is  Slavery  open,  bold,  roar- 
ing, aggressive,  or  it  is  Slavery  sneaking  in  the  grass, 
and  calling  itself  compromise.  It  is  the  same  devil 
under  either  name." ' 

He  believed  in  a  compromise  which  meant  simply 
forbearance,  kindness,  a  concession  in  things  and  not 
in  principles,  "only  that  is  not  compromise,  inter- 
preted by  the  facts  of  our  past  history."  Mr.  Beecher 
showed  that  the  North  wished  the  South  no  harm, 
but  rather  every  prosperity;  that  it  was  willing  to 
give  the  South  all  that,  by  the  most  liberal  construc- 
tion, was  put  into  the  original  bond.  "  The  Constitu- 
tion gives  them  liberty  to  retake  their  fugitive  slaves 
wherever  they  can  find  them.  Very  well.  Let  them. 
But  when  the  Congress  goes  beyond  the  Constitution, 
and  demands,  on  penalty,  that  citizens  of  free  States 
shall  help  and  render  back  the  flying  slave,  we  give 
a  blunt  and  unequivocal  refusal.  We  are  determined 
to  break  any  law  that  commands  us  to  enslave  or  re- 
enslave  a  man,  and  we  are  willing  to  take  the  penalty. 
But  that  was  not  in  the  original  bond.  That  is  a 
parasitic  egg,  laid  in  the  Constitution  by  corrupt 
legislation  or  by  construction."     "No  political  hand 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  235 


STEERING    BY    THE   DIVINE    COMPASS.  253 

shall  rob  the  South.  We  will  defend  her  coast ;  we 
will  guard  her  inland  border  from  all  vexations  from 
without;  and  in  good  faith,  in  earnest  friendship,  in 
fealty  to  the  Constitution,  and  in  fellowship  with  the 
States,  we  will,  and  with  growing  earnestness  to  the 
end,  fulfill  every  just  duty,  every  honorable  agreement, 
and  every  generous  act  within  the  limits  of  truth  and 
honor  ;  all  that  and  no  more, — no  more,  though  the 
heavens  fall, — no  more,  if  States  unclasp  their  hands, — 
no  more,  if  they  raise  up  violence  against  us,  no 
more ! " ' 

He  showed  that  the  secret  intentions  of  the  South- 
ern leaders  could  not  be  met  by  any  compromise. 
"  What  do  those  men  that  are  really  at  the  bottom  of 
this  conspiracy  mean  ?  Nothing  more  nor  less  than 
this  :  Southern  empire  for  slavery,  and  the  reopen- 
ing of  the  slave-trade  as  a  means  by  which  it  be  fed. 
Free  commerce  and  enslaved  work  is  their  motto. 
They  will  not  yet  say  it  aloud.  But  this  is  the 
whispered  secret  of  men  in  Carolina,  and  men  outside 
of  Carolina.  Their  secret  purpose  is  to  sweep  west- 
ward like  night,  and  involve  in  the  cloud  of  their 
darkness  all  Central  America,  and  then  make  Africa 
empty  into  Central  America,  thus  changing  the  moral 
geography  of  the  globe." 

"They  mean  slavery.  They  mean  an  Empire  of 
Slavery.  They  don't  any  longer  talk  of  the  evil  of 
slavery.  It  is  a  virtue,  a  religion  !  It  is  justice  and 
divine  economy !  Slaves  are  missionaries.  Slave- 
ships  bring  heathen  to  plantation-Christianity.  They 
imagine  unobstructed  greatness  when  servile  hands 


1  "Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  237. 


254  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

shall  whiten  the  plains  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
with  cotton.    Carolina  despises  compromise."  ' 

"And  do  you  think,  poor,  simple,  peeping  sparrow, 
that  you  can  build  your  poor  moss  and  hair  nest  of 
compromise  on  the  face  of  the  perpendicular  cliff,  that 
towers  a  thousand  feet  high,  with  the  blackness  of 
storms  sweeping  around  its  top,  and  the  thunder  of  a 
turbulent  ocean  breaking  upon  its  base — and  God, 
more  terrible  than  either,  high  above  them,  meaning 
Justice  and  Retribution  !  "  * 

He  showed  that  moral  apostasy  was  the  only  basis 
on  which  a  compromise  satisfactory  to  the  South 
could  be  built,  a  compromise  that  would  shut  the 
mouth  of  free  speech,  cure  the  intolerance  of  the 
plantation,  and  make  evil  as  profitable  as  good  ! 
With  magnificent  eloquence  he  pointed  out  how 
impossible  it  was  to  prevent  the  departure  of  the 
children  of  oppression  from  their  house  of  bondage. 
There  was  too  much  light  in  the  North  to  keep  all 
men  in  slavery.  Men  would  take  their  lives  in  their 
hands  and  risk  everything  for  liberty.  "It  is  of  no 
use  to  tell  the  South  that  it  shall  not  be  so.  It  is  of 
no  use  to  whisper  to  them  and  say,  'Your  troubles 
shall  cease;  we  will  fix  this  matter  to  your  satisfaction.' 
God  never  made  brick  or  trowel  by  which  to  patch 
up  that  door  of  deliverance.  By  night  and  by  day 
slaves  will  flee  away  and  escape." 

"I  would  die  myself,  cheerfully  and  easily,  before  a 
man  should  be  taken  out  of  my  hands  when  I  had  the 
power  to  give  him  liberty,  and  the  hound  was  after 
him    for    his   blood.     I   would    stand   as   an  altar    of 


1  "Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  237.    '"Patriotic  Addresses     p.  238. 


STEERING    BY    THE    DIVINE    COMPASS.  255 

expiation  between  slavery  and  liberty,  knowing  that 
through  my  example  a  million  men  would  live."1 

"  I  see  that  my  words  are  being  reported,  and  as 
free  speech  may  get  into  Charleston,  some  men  there 
may  see  what  I  say,  and  let  me  say  this  to  my  South- 
ern brethren  :  We  mean  to  observe  the  Constitution, 
and  keep  every  compact  into  which  we  have  entered. 
There  are  men  who  would  deceive  you.  They  are 
your  enemies  and  ours  alike.  They  would  tell  lies 
to  you,  but  we  will  not  stand  up  and  indorse  them. 
I  tell  you  as  long  as  there  are  these  free  States;  as 
long  as  there  are  hills  in  which  men  can  hide,  and  val- 
leys through  which  they  can  travel;  as  long  as  there 
is  blood  in  the  veins,  and  humanity  in  the  heart,  so 
long  the  fugitive  will  not  want  for  sympathy  and  help 
to  escape."  2 

He  showed  from  the  history  of  compromises  how 
utterly  futile  they  had  been  in  this  prolonged  and 
painful  controversy  between  the  forces  of  feeedom 
and  slavery,  and  the  only  result  had  been  "  growing 
demands,  growing  impudence,  growing  wickedness, 
and  increasing  dissatisfaction,  until  at  last  excite- 
ments that  used  to  come  once  in  twenty  years  began 
to  come  at  every  ten,  and  now  once  in  four  years,  and 
you  cannot  elect  a  President  strictly  according  to 
constitutional  method  without  having  this  Nation 
imperiled,  banks  shaken,  stores  overturned,  panics 
created,  and  citizens  terrified.  You  have  come  to 
that  state  in  which  the  whole  Nation  is  turmoiled 
and  agitated,  and  driven  hither  and  thither  on  ac- 
count of  the  evil  effects  of  compromise."3 

1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  239.    2 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  240. 
s"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  241. 


256  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

He  showed  that  compromise  was  a  desperate  shift 
of  cowardice,  begotten  »n  deceit  and  ending  in  anger. 
"  Compromises  bury  troubles,  but  cannot  keep  down 
their  ghosts.  They  rise,  and  walk,  and  haunt,  and 
gibber.  We  must  bury  our  evils  without  resurrection. 
Let  come  what  will, — secession,  disunion,  revolted 
States,  and  a  ragamuffin  empire  of  bankrupt  States, 
confederated  in  the  name  of  liberty  for  oppression 
or  whatever  other  monstrosity  malignant  fortune 
may  have  in  store, — nothing  can  be  worse  than  this 
endless  recurring  threat  and  fear — this  arrogant  dra- 
gooning of  the  South — this  mercantile  cringing  in  the 
North." 

"  Shall  every  quadrennial  e\ection  take  place  in  the 
full  fury  of  Southern  threats  ?  Is  the  plantation- 
whip  to  control  our  ballot-boxes  ?  Shall  Northern 
sentiment  express  itself  by  constitutional  means,  at 
the  peril  of  punishment?  Must  panic  follow  elec- 
tion ?  And  bankruptcy  follow  every  expression  of 
liberty?"  "The  North  must  accept  its  own  prin- 
ciples, and  take  the  consequences.  Manliness 
demands  this — Honor  demands  it.  But  if  we  will 
not  heed  worthier  motives,  then  Interest  demands  it. 
If  even  this  is  not  strong  enough  for  commercial 
pusillanimity,  then  Necessity,  inevitable  and  irresis- 
tible, will  drive  and  scourge  us  to  it  !  " ' 

"  Let  every  good  man  arouse,  and  speak  the  truth 
for  liberty.  Let  us  have  an  invincible  courage  for 
liberty.  Let  us  have  moderation  in  passions,  zeal  in 
moral  sentiments,  a  spirit  of  conciliation  and  conces- 
sion in  mere  material  interests,  but  unmovable  firm- 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  244. 


STEERING    BY    THE    DIVINE    COMPASS.  257 

ness    for    principles;    and — foremost   of   all    political 
principles— for  Liberty  !  "  1 

What  upheld  and  inspired  Mr.  Beecher  during  the 
terrible  and  unparalleled  crisis  of  the  winter  of  1860- 
1861,  was  a  strong,  unfaltering  faith  in  God,  an  un- 
doubting  confidence  that  the  Union  was  "  not  going 
to  be  broken  and  shivered  like  a  crystal  vase  that  can 
never  be  put  together  again,"  because  he  realized 
the  presence  of  God  in  the  National  life,  because  he 
felt  that  America  embodied  in  her  ideal  the  principles 
of  the  Christian  Gospel.  Without  expecting  any 
satisfactory  results  from  compromise,  or  from  the 
careful  explanations  which  Mr.  Lincoln  made  to  the 
South,  he  did  expect  that  the  Nation's  institutions, 
even  though  it  might  be  through  concussions,  and 
garments  rolled  in  blood,  would  be  settled  on  right 
and  permanent  foundations. 


'*  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  245. 


17 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


BEFORE  THE  GREAT  STORM. 


The  winter  preceding  the  war  was  the  period  dur- 
ing which  the  best  life  of  the  great  American  Re- 
public touched  in  places  its  lowest  ebb.  President 
Buchanan  argued  before  the  Congress  which  con- 
vened in  December  that  the  National  Government 
possessed  no  power  to  coerce  a  State.  The  North 
was  prolific  of  compromises,  some  of  them  unspeak- 
ably base,  offered  to  the  South.  Mr.  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Republican  party, 
and  one  who  gained  just  celebrity  as  the  Minister  of 
the  United  States  at  the  Court  of  St.  James  during 
the  war,  even  proposed  that  the  National  Constitu- 
tion be  so  changed  that  there  should  be  no  subse- 
quent amendment  made  to  it,  which  had  for  its  object 
any  interference  with  slavery,  unless  such  amend- 
ment originated  with  a  slave  State,  and  secured  the 
assent  of  every  State  in  the  Union!  It  seems  to-day 
utterly  incredible  that  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
party  whose  purpose  was  to  resist  the  aggressions  of 
slavery,  should  offer,  in  the  teeth  of  Southern 
threats,  to  bind  liberty  with  indissoluble  bands,  and 
fling  her  helpless  at  the  feet  of  her  age-long  and 
cruel  foe!  "No  Southern  man,  during  the  long 
agitation    of    the    slavery    question    extending    from 


BEFORE   THE    GREAT    STORM.  259 

1820  to  i860,  had  ever  submitted  so  extreme  a  prop- 
osition as  that  of  Mr.  Adams."1 

Wendell  Phillips,  standing  like  a  prophet  before 
the  Boston  mobs  of  that  winter,  and  arguing  for  dis- 
union, was  an  infinitely  nobler  spectacle  than  North- 
ern politicans  offering  to  sell  conscience,  humanity, 
and  justice  in  order  to  keep  Treason  from  striking 
the  blow  which  was  to  launch  her  slave  empire! 

President  Buchanan  issued  a  proclamation,  appoint- 
ing January  4,  1861,  as  a  day  for  fasting  and  prayer. 
That  fast  marks,  it  has  been  well  said,  "  the  lowest 
point  of  degradation  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  ever  reached."  The  sermon  which  Mr.  Beecher 
uttered  on  that  day  is  one  of  the  most  striking  and 
stirring  pulpit  addresses  of  the  century.  It  deserves 
to  take  rank  with  the  greatest  sermons  of  all  time, 
from  the  vigor  of  its  thought,  the  comprehensiveness 
of  its  perception  of  the  Nation's  blameworthiness,  the 
moral  sublimity  of  its  tone  and  its  magnificent  de- 
nunciation of  the  cowardice  that  was  plunging  the 
Republic  into  ruin. 

He  pictured  the  Nation  rolling  helplessly  in  a  great 
tempest,  and  the  crew,  who  had  brought  the  ship 
into  danger  by  pusillanimity  and  treachery,  calling 
on  God  for  deliverance.  He  showed  that  the  authori- 
ties who  had  appointed  the  fast  had  given  sufficient 
reasons  by  their  own  deeds  for  observing  it.  Even 
to-day  Mr.  Beecher's  words  make  the  reader  fairly 
feel  the  darkness  and  swirling  tornado,  thick  with 
thunderbolts  of  war,  sweeping  from  the  treacherous 
Caribbean  Sea,  to  overwhelm  the  Government  in  dis- 


1  Blaine's  "  Twenty  Years  of  Congress,"  p.  260. 


«6o  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

aster,  and  irremediable  destruction.  He  makes  the 
blood  hot,  even  now,  to  recall  that  the  Government 
was  in  peril  because  Liberty  had  grown  strong,  that 
the  wildest  fanaticism  was  rampant  in  the  South, 
turning  cities  into  camps,  threatening  civil  war,  and 
hideous  murder  and  revenges,  perpetrating  gigantic 
dishonesties,  because  the  South  had  lost  control  of 
the  National  Government,  and  had  determined  on 
independence  and  slave  empire,  even  if  the  continent 
had  to  be  swept,  and  desolated  by  the  furies  of  civil 
strife. 

With  solemn  earnestness  Mr.  Beecher  called  upon 
the  people  to  confess  their  real  sins,  to  turn  from  all 
passions,  from  all  thoughts  and  feelings  which  could 
not  bear  the  searching  inquest  of  God's  awful  Judg- 
ment Day,  to  take  solemn  account  of  the  vice  and 
crime,  the  perversion  of  justice,  and  the  great  public 
wickedness,  the  luxury,  extravagance,  ostentation, 
and  corruption  of  morals  for  which  Northern  cities 
were  as  guilty  before  God  as  were  the  Southern 
States  for  the  gigantic  evils  of  slavery.  No  Hebrew 
prophet  ever  flamed  with  more  heat  and  splendor 
against  the  horrible  wantonness  of  wide-spread 
avarice  and  all  the  bad  uses  of  money,  and  against 
all  the  corruptions  which,  like  sea-worms,  ocean-bred 
and  swarming  innumerably,  were  piercing  and 
destroying  the  stout  Ship  of  State. 

With  no  disposition  to  spare  the  North,  he  por- 
trayed the  national  blameworthiness  toward  the 
Indian,  on  whom  every  crime  in  the  calendar  of 
wrong  had  been  committed;  the  wickedness  of  a 
Christian  Nation  swindling,  chastising,  wasting, 
destroying  a  heathen  people,  was  never  made  more 


BEFORE   THE   GREAT   STORM.  26 I 

odious.  But  when  he  came  to  the  sin  of  slavery,  the 
most  alarming  and  portentous  of  all  our  sins,  when 
he  portrayed  the  oppugnant  elements  of  Puritan  lib- 
erty and  Roman  servitude  which,  for  two  hundred 
and  forty  years  had  grappled  in  America,  when 
he  showed  that  the  Constitution  had  nourished  on 
its  bosom  warring  and  irreconcilable  sins,  he  spoke 
with  an  eloquence  perhaps  never  since  equaled,  an 
eloquence  which  was  just  and  discriminating,  lashing 
the  North  that  loved  money  more  than  God  and  jus- 
tice, the  North  which,  cradled  in  intelligence  and 
liberty,  had  become  confederated  with  slavery  until 
the  whole  body  politic  was  pervaded  with  this  deadly 
injustice. 

He  declared  how  the  North  had  participated,  not 
only  in  the  beginnings  but  in  the  subsequent  spread 
of  oppression;  how  the  public  sentiment  which,  when 
the  Constitution  was  adopted,  was  favorable  to  lib- 
erty, had  been  allowed  to  subside  into  an  acquies- 
cence with  the  purposes  of  slavery,  and  that,  sum- 
moned before  the  judgment  bar  of  God,  the  North 
was  guilty  of  having  betrayed  her  stewardship.  With 
all  the  moral  power  of  her  pulpit,  of  her  schools  and 
colleges,  in  seventy-five  years  she  had  permitted 
liberty  to  be  discrowned  and  dishonored;  the  moral 
delinquency  had  reached  the  Puritan  blood,  which 
seemed  to  him  blood  touched  by  the  blood  of  Christ. 
An  unparalleled  guilt,  an  astounding  sin  must  be 
laid  to  the  account  of  the  North  for  the  progress  and 
peril  of  slavery.  "  If  this  confederacy  shall  be  broken 
up,  if  the  Gulf  States  shall  demand  a  division  of  the 
country,  and  the  intermediate  States  shall  go  off  and 
two  empires  shall  be  established,  no  steward  that  has 


262  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

lived  since  God's  sun  shone  on  the  earth  will  have 
such  an  account  to  render  of  an  estate  taken  under 
such  favorable  auspices,  as  the  North  will  have  to 
render  of  this  great  national  estate  which  was  com- 
mitted to  her  trust.  It  is  an  astounding  sin!  It  is 
an  unparalleled  guilt!  The  vengeance  and  zeal  of  our 
hearts  towards  the  South  might  be  somewhat  tem- 
pered by  the  reflection  that  we  have  been  so  faithless 
and  so  wicked." ' 

It  will  be  hard  to  find  elsewhere  any  scathing  of  a 
recreant  and  apostate  pulpit  more  terribly  just  than 
that  which  flames  in  this  powerful  discourse.  A  pul- 
pit teaching  the  most  heathen  notions  of  liberty,  so 
perverting  popular  sentiment  that  George  Washing- 
ton, if  living  now,  would  not  be  able  to  live  one  day 
in  Charleston  and  utter  the  opinions  he  used  to  ex- 
press; so  corrupting  the  land  that  the  Chief  Magis- 
trate declared  that  the  authors  of  all  the  trouble 
were  the  men  who  held  the  doctrines  of  the  Nation's 
fathers  in  regard  to  human  rights;  a  pulpit  which 
turned  the  Bible  into  a  covered  passage  through  which 
all  the  fiends  of  hell  walked  in  to  do  mischief  upon 
earth;  which  made  the  Word  of  God,  as  interpreted 
by  a  besotted  priesthood,  a  bulwark  of  oppression, 
and  hence  a  strong  argument  for  infidelity;  such  a 
pulpit  was  not  in  spiritual  concord  and  alliance  with 
Him  who  came  to  earth  to  proclaim  liberty  to  the 
captives,  and  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord. 

Mr.  Beecher,  as  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  wisely 
said,  knew  how  best  to  employ  his  egoisms,  his  own 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  380 


BEFORE   THE    GREAT    STORM.  263 

personality  in  his  speaking,  and  in  this  mighty  out- 
pouring of  his  head  and  heart  he  made  a  public 
confession  of  his  own  sin.  He  had  been  indolent, 
he  had  not  been  duly  active  in  opposition  to  slav- 
ery; he  mourned  his  lack  of  zeal,  and  confessed  his 
share  of  responsibility  in  the  Nation's  sin,  and  he 
offered  his  prayer  of  sincere  contrition  and  penitence 
that  he  had  not  been  more  faithful  to  liberty  and 
religion. 

He  believed  that  the  Nation  must  be  tested  and 
tried,  and  if,  with  holy  martyrs  and  brave  confessors, 
they  bore  true  witness  for  Christ,  God  would  yet 
appear  as  the  leader  and  captain  of  their  salvation; 
and  he" closed  his  magnificent  sermon  with  the  prayer 
that  the  God  who  loves  to  forgive  and  forget  might 
hear  their  cries,  pardon  the  past,  inspire  the  future, 
and  bring  the  Nation  to  its  latter-day  glory. 

The  terrible  winter  of  1861  ended,  but  the  opening 
of  the  springtime  was  a  period  of  storms,  with  little 
promise  of  a  peaceful  and  fruitful  summer  in  the 
Nation's  life.  The  seeds  which  men  had  planted  were 
seeds  of  fire. 

"  But  some  day  the  live  coal  behind  the  thought, 

Whether  from  Baal's  stone  obscene, 

Or  from  the  shrine  serene, 
Of  God's  pure  altar  brought, 
Bursts  up  in  flame  ;  the  war  of  tongue  and  pen 

Learns  with  what  deadly  purpose  it  was  fraught 

And,  helpless  in  the  fiery  passion  caught, 
Shakes  all  the  pillared  state  with  shock  of  men." 

The  cannon-shot  was  fired  against  Fort  Sumter. 
"On    Sunday    morning,    the    14th    of   April,    it   was 


264  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

known   that  Sumter   had   surrendered.     The   scales 
fell  from  men's  eyes  ! 
THERE   WAS  WAR! 

The  flag  of  the  Nation  had  been  pierced  by  men 
who  had  been  taught  their  fatal  skill  under  its  pro- 
tection! The  Nation's  pride,  its  love,  its  honor  suffered 
with  that  flag,  and  with  it  trailed  in  humiliation  ! 

Without  concert,  or  counsel,  the  whole  people  rose 
suddenly  with  one  indignation  to  vindicate  the 
Nation's  honor.  It  came  as  the  night  comes,  or  the 
morning — broad  as  a  hemisphere.  It  rose  as  the 
tides  raise  the  whole  ocean,  along  the  whole  conti- 
nent, drawn  upward  by  the  whole  heavens  ! 

"  The  frivolous  became  solemn  ;  the  wild  grew 
stern,  the  young  felt  an  instant  manhood. 

"  It  was  the  strangest  Sunday  that  ever  dawned 
on  Norwood  since  the  Colonial  days  when,  by  reason 
of  hostile  Indians,  the  fathers  repaired  to  church 
with  their  muskets!  "  ' 

Again,  in  writing  of  this  uprising  in  his  story  of 
village  life  in  New  England,  Mr.  Beecher  said  :  "  Our 
noblest  sentiments,  when  assailed,  never  deliberate. 
A  wise  man  foreseasons  in  advance  his  honor,  love, 
purity,  patriotism,  with  reason.  When  touched  with 
harm,  they  burst  forth  into  action  as  instantaneously 
as  powder  touched  with  fire  into  flame  !  When  the 
flag  was  abased  the  Nation  shuddered.  No  one  had 
suspected  how  deep  in  the  heart  of  the  people  was 
the  sentiment  of  patriotism.  For  two  generations 
men  had  been  buying  and  selling,  making  and  dis- 
tributing, until   the  dust  and  shavings  of  the  manu- 


1  "  Norwood,"  p.  401. 


BEFORE    THE    GREAT    STORM.  265 

factory  seemed  to  have  covered  down  all  heroic  sen- 
timents. Long  peace  and  exceeding  prosperity  had 
shaped  popular  politics  into  a  greedy  game  of  policy; 
and  great  principles,  no  longer  debated  or  tolerated, 
sat  in  the  Capitol,  like  decrepit  old  men,  crooning  of 
the  golden  days  of  old. 

"The  lowering  of  the  Nation's  flag  before  the  guns 
of  South  Carolina,  pierced  the  pride  and  honor  of  the 
North  to  the  quick.  The  outburst  was  universal  and 
unpremeditated."  ' 

When  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter  occurred, 
Mr.  Beecher  was  under  engagement  to  lecture  in  Cin- 
cinnati. The  lecture  committee,  however,  protested 
that  it  was  not  safe  for  him  to  deliver  his  address.  Mr. 
Beecher  declared,  however,  that  he  should  speak  what 
he  had  come  to  say,  either  indoors  or  out-doors.  But 
the  people  fearing  a  riot  came  in  but  small  numbers. 
He  who  was  to  be  the  voice  of  the  Republic  at  the 
court  of  humanity,  and  especially  before  the  Empire 
of  Great  Britain,  hurried  back  to  Brooklyn.  His  oldest 
son  had  already  enlisted  and  returned  to  his  home. 
Mrs.  Beecher  forbade  him  leaving  the  house  before 
Mr.  Beecher's  return.  The  young  man  was  extremely 
anxious  as  to  what  his  father  would  say  of  his  con- 
duct. His  first  question  was  :  "  Father,  may  I  enlist  ?" 
and  the  swift  answer  came,  "  If  you  don't,  I'll  disown 
you." 


1  "  Norwood,"  pp.  407-408. 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 

A    GREAT    LEADER    IN    A   GREAT    CRISIS. 

In  the  momentous  struggle  which  for  four  years 
shook  and  desolated  the  land,  Mr.  Beecher  was 
undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  potent  factors  in  keep- 
ing the  North  firm  and  resolute.  During  the  closely 
contested  struggle  in  the  State  of  New  York  his 
great  influence  had  contributed  greatly  to  the  elec- 
tion of  Lincoln.  Mr.  Frederick  Hudson,  the  able 
journalist,  has  said  of  him:  "  It  is  probable  that  there 
is  not  another  man  in  the  United  States  who  is  as 
much  heard  and  read  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  unless 
the  other  man  be  Wendell  Phillips.  These  two 
preachers,  publicists,  and  journalists  are  emphatically 
the  greatest  men  of  their  kind  in  the  country.  .  .  . 
Every  journal  at  the  North  throws  open  its  columns 
to  them.  .  .  .  Where  James  Gordon  Bennett  has 
half  a  million  readers  for  one  of  his  articles,  Wendell 
Phillips  has  one  or  two  millions.  While  Phillips 
indulges  in  politics,  Beecher  is  equally  successful 
with  his  religious  notions.  .  .  .  Are  not  these  two 
men,  therefore,  the  two  great  editors  of  the  United 
States?"1 

Communication  with  regard  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cab- 
inet was  opened  between  Mr.  Beecher  and  the  Presi- 


1  Howard's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  pp.  279-280. 


A   GREAT    LEADER   IN   A   GREAT   CRISIS.  267 

dent.  But  the  great  Plymouth  pastor's  real  genius 
and  wisdom  were  rarely  conspicuous  in  his  judgment 
of  men,  while  as  a  popular  advocate  of  great  prin- 
ciples and  policies  he  was  unsurpassed.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  any  contemporary  record  of  the  war 
that  reproduces  so  vividly  the  moral  agitation,  the 
fervent  and  tumultuous  popular  feeling,  as  do  Mr. 
Beecher's  great  sermons,  The  Battle  set  in  Array, 
The  National  Flag,  The  Camp,  its  Dangers  and 
Duties,  God  in  National  Affairs,  The  Success  of 
American  Democracy,  National  Injustice  and  Pen- 
alty, The  Grounds  and  Form  of  Government,  Liberty 
under  Laws. 

In  his  wonderful  Star  papers  published  in  The 
Independent,  of  which  he  became  the  editor  in  Decem- 
ber, 1861,  we  gain  a  new  appreciation  of  his  wisdom  as 
a  moral  leader  and  his  greatness  as  a  Christian  prophet 
in  the  greatest  national  crisis  of  our  history.  We  feel 
again  the  thrill  of  those  momentous  times.  His  words 
throb  with  the  mighty  pulse  of  the  great-hearted 
patriot,  and  they  touch  our  noblest  sensibilities  to- 
day. They  are  filled  with  an  enthusiasm  of  faith, 
with  an  abundance  of  moral  courage  and  are  fairly 
ablaze  with  divine  hopefulness. 

In  the  sermon  preached  April  14,  1861,  during  the 
siege  of  Sumter,  which  had  an  immense  circulation, 
and  was  read  by  some  preachers  from  their  pulpits  as 
the  best  words  for  the  hour,  is  one  of  the  noblest  ex- 
amples of  Mr.  Beecher's  eloquence.  He  showed  how 
God  had  raised  up  great  leaders  at  different  exigen- 
cies to  bring  forth  His  people.  Their  courage  came 
from  moral  principle.  Moses,  Luther,  the  heroes  of 
Dutch   independence,    and    of   the  Puritan  struggle, 


268  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

were  men  who  had  heard  God's  voice,  saying  "Go 
forward."  They  were  willing  to  venture  everything, 
endure  everything,  rather  than  yield  the  precious 
truths  of  which  they  were  the  gnardians.  "  Right 
before  us  lies  the  Red  Sea  of  War.  It  is  red  indeed. 
There  is  blood  in  it.  We  have  come  to  the  very  edge 
of  it,  and  the  Word  of  God  to  us  to-day  is:  '  Speak 
unto  this  people  that  they  go  forward  !'  " 

After  showing  that  the  Federal  Government  was 
created  for  justice  and  liberty,  and  that  from  unfore- 
seen causes  slavery  had  swelled  to  unexpected  power, 
and  that  for  the  last  twenty-five  years  there  had  been 
a  growing  constitutional  opposition  to  oppression,  he 
said:  "For  twenty  years  of  defeat,  though  of  grow- 
ing influence,  we  have  argued  the  questions  of  human 
rights  and  human  liberty,  and  the  doctrines  of  the 
Constitution  and  of  our  fathers,  and  we  have  main- 
tained that  the  children  should  stand  where  their 
fathers  did.  At  last  the  continent  has  consented. 
We  began  as  a  handful,  in  the  midst  of  mobs  and 
derision  and  obloquy.  We  have  gone  through  the 
experience  of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary.  The  cause 
of  Christ  among  His  poor  has  suffered  as  the  Master 
suffered,  again  and  again  and  again;  and  at  last  the 
public  sentiment  at  the  North  has  been  revolution- 
ized." ' 

He  believed  that  the  vast  majority  of  the  Nation 
were  now  on  the  side  of  American  institutions.  The 
rebelling  States  had  disowned  their  country  and  made 
war  upon  it.  "  There  has  been  a  spirit  of  patriotism 
in  the  North,  but  never,  within  my  memory,  in  the 


"'Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  275. 


A    GREAT    LEADER   IN   A    GREAT   CRISIS.  269 

South.  I  never  heard  a  man  from  the  South  speak 
of  himself  as  an  American.  Men  from  the  South 
always  speak  of  themselves  as  Southerners."  ' 

What  a  change  has  come  over  our  national  life  since 
then.  It  is  the  testimony  of  a  distinguished  minister 
at  the  Court  of  St.  James  of  recent  years,  that  Amer- 
icans traveling  abroad,  whether  they  come  from 
Maine  or  Texas,  from  Massachusetts  or  Florida,  speak 
of  themselves  as  Americans,  and  not  primarily  as 
citizens  of  their  particular  State. 

"  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  this  Nation," 
said  Mr.  Beecher,"  "  there  is  a  deliberate  and  exten- 
sive preparation  for  war,  and  this  country  has  received 
the  deadly  thrust  of  bullet  and  bayonet  from  the 
hands  of  her  own  children."  "  I  hold  it  is  ten  thou- 
sand times  better  to  have  war  than  to  have  slavery. 
I  hold  that  to  be  corrupted  silently  by  giving  up  man- 
hood, by  degenerating,  by  becoming  cravens,  by 
yielding  one  right  after  another,  is  infinitely  worse 
than  war."  "  Eighty  years  of  unexampled  pros- 
perity have  gone  far  toward  making  us  a  people  that 
judge  of  moral  questions  by  their  relation  to  our  con- 
venience and  ease."  "  If  it  please  God  to  wrap  this 
Nation  in  war,  one  result  will  follow:  We  shall  be 
called  to  suffer  for  our  faith."2 

He  believed  that  war  for  nationality  and  liberty, 
leading  the  North  to  suffer  for  its  faith,  would  lift  the 
national  life  to  a  holier  level.  The  Nation  might  re- 
treat from  impending  strife  and  secure  temporary 
peace  by  submitting  to  the  dictation  of  a  minority, 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  276. 

9  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp,  277-278. 


270  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

by  legalizing  the  right  of  any  discontented  fragment 
to  rebel  and  set  up  its  own  authority,  or  by  rewriting 
the  Constitution  according  to  the  principles  of  Alex- 
ander Stephens,  expurging  liberty  and  enthroning 
slavery.  "Take  that  glorious,  flaming  sentence  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  which  asserts  the  right 
of  every  man  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness, and  which  pronounces  that  right  to  be  alike 
inalienable  to  all, — take  that  and  strike  it  out  and  put 
in  its  place  this  infernal  article  of  the  new  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Southern  States,  and  you  can  have  peace 
— for  a  little  while."  "  The  Southern  Churches  are 
all  sound  on  the  question  of  the  Bible,  and  infidel  on 
the  question  of  its  contents  !  They  believe  that  this 
is  God's  Book;  they  believe  that  this  book  is  the 
world's  charter,  and  they  believe  it  teaches  the  relig- 
ion of  servitude."  l 

Purchasing  peace  by  entering  into  a  partnership 
with  slavery  and  the  principles  of  slavery  and  by 
criminal  silence  was  not  at  all  to  Mr.  Beecher's  mind. 
"  Are  you  prepared  to  take  peace  upon  these  condi- 
tions ?  .  .  .  Give  me  war  redder  than  blood  and 
fiercer  than  fire,  if  this  terrible  affliction  is  necessary, 
that  I  may  maintain  my  faith  in  God,  in  human  lib- 
erty, my  faith  of  the  fathers  in  the  instruments  of 
liberty,  my  faith  in  this  land  as  the  appointed  abode 
and  chosen  refuge  of  liberty  for  all  the  earth!"2 

He  believed,  however,  that  the  time  had  come  to 
cleanse,  deepen,  and  strengthen  the  just  principles  of 
the  North,  to  draw  lines  and  choose  sides  and  make 
sharp  distinctions  between  shufflers  and  brave  men. 


"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  280.    '"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  283. 


A    GREAT    LEADER   IN   A    GREAT    CRISIS.  271 

"  Thousands,  thank  God,  of  great  men  have  spoken 
to  us,  but  I  think  that  the  war-voice  of  Sumter  has 
done  more  to  bring  men  together,  and  to  produce 
unit)'  of  feeling  among  them  on  this  subject  than  the 
most  eloquent-tongued  orator."  It  was  not  a  time 
to  stop  and  measure  costs,  to  take  counsel  of  the  till, 
and  the  safe,  and  the  bank.  That  time  was  past.  The 
infatuated  men  of  the  South  would  not  have  peace, 
"  They  are  in  arms.  They  have  fired  upon  the  Amer- 
ican flag  !  That  glorious  banner  has  been  borne 
through  every  climate,  all  over  the  globe,  and  for  fifty 
years  not  a  land  nor  people  has  been  found  to  scorn 
it  or  dishonor  it.  At  home,  among  the  degenerate 
people  of  our  own  land,  among  Southern  citizens,  for 
the  first  time,  has  this  glorious  National  flag  been 
abased,  and  trampled  to  the  ground!  It  is  for  our 
sons  reverently  to  lift  it,  and  to  bear  it  full  high  again 
to  victory  and  National  supremacy."  1 

The  peace  to  be  aimed  at  must  be  built  upon  im- 
mutable foundations.  He  urged  that  the  Northern 
feeling  should  not  be  vengeful  or  savage,  that  a  truly 
Christian  spirit,  such  as  was  maintained  by  our  fathers 
in  the  Revolutionary  struggle,  should  animate  a  great 
people  in  this  war  of  tremendous  conflicts.  In  the 
sublimely  eloquent  closing  words  of  this  great  dis- 
course we  hear  the  voice  of  Milton  and  the  voice  of 
Chatham,  and  the  voice  of  the  fathers  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic.  "  Let  not  your  children,  as  they  carry 
you  to  your  burial  be  ashamed  to  write  upon  your 
tombstones  the  truth  of  your  history.  Let  every  man 
that  lives  and   owns  himself  an   American,  take  the 


1 '*  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  285. 


272  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

side  of  true  American  principles;  liberty  for  one,  and 
liberty  for  all;  liberty  now,  and  liberty  for  ever;  liberty 
as  the  foundation  of  government,  and  liberty  as  the 
basis  of  union;  liberty  as  against  revolution,  liberty 
against  anarchy,  and  liberty  against  slavery;  liberty 
here  and  liberty  everywhere,  the  world  through! 

"When  the  trumpet  of  God  has  sounded, and  that 
grand  procession  is  forming;  as  Italy  has  risen,  and  is 
wheeling  into  the  ranks;  as  Hungary,  though  mute,  is 
beginning  to  beat  time,  and  make  ready  for  the 
march;  as  Poland,  having  long  slept,  has  dreamt  of  lib- 
erty again,  and  is  waking;  as  the  thirty  million  serfs  are 
hearing  the  roll  of  the  drum,  and  are  going  forward 
toward  citizenship,  let  it  not  be  your  miserable  fate, 
nor  mine,  to  live  in  a  Nation  that  shall  be  seen  reeling 
and  staggering  and  wallowing  in  the  orgies  of  despot- 
ism! We,  too,  have  a  right  to  march  in  this  grand 
procession  of  liberty.  By  the  memory  of  the  fathers; 
by  the  suffering  of  the  Puritan  ancestry;  by  the  teach- 
ing of  our  national  history;  by  our  faith  and  hope  of 
religion;  by  every  line  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  every  article  of  our  Constitution;  by 
what  we  are  and  what  our  progenitors  were, — we  have 
a  right  to  walk  foremost  in  this  grand  procession  of 
nations  toward  the  bright  future."1 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  288. 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 

TOILING    FOR  LIBERTY   AND    THE    UNION. 

Few  men  in  the  North  labored  so  incessantly  and 
ardently  to  maintain  the  Union  cause,  to  strengthen 
the  military  forces  of  the  National  Administration 
and  to  induce  the  President  to  adopt  a  radical  anti- 
slavery  policy  as  Mr.  Beecher.  Perhaps  there  was 
no  wiser  guiding  spirit  in  the  Nation  than  the  great- 
hearted pastor  of  Plymouth  Church,  though  others 
may  justly  claim  to  have  exercised  a  more  constant 
and  undeviating  faith  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  wisdom  and 
sufficiency  for  the  national  crisis. 

Mr.  Beecher  seemed  two  different  men,  the  one  all 
enthusiasm  and  earnest  conviction,  intensely  devoted 
to  the  success  of  great  principles;  the  other  all  tender- 
ness toward  individual  sinners.  In  the  fierce  excite- 
ment following  the  death  of  Col.  Ellsworth  he  said: 
"  When  I  look  at  the  South,  other  feelings  besides 
those  of  vengeance  are  excited  within  me.  Every  one 
of  those  traitors  is  as  wicked  as  you  think,  and  more. 
The  Floyds,  the  Davises,  the  Toombses,  the  Rhetts, 
and  all  such  as  they,  are  more  wicked  than  we  know; 
and  yet  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Saviour  held  up 
for  every  such  one.  They  are  all  immortal,  they  are 
all,  like  myself,  pilgrims  toward  the  bourne  of  the 


274  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

eternal.  And  when  I  think  how  many  ignorant 
creatures  are  led  by  those  base  men  to  do  wicked 
things,  half  of  the  wickedness  of  which  they  do  not 
know,  I  feel  compassion  for  them  and  am  sorry 
for  them." 

After  describing  the  turbulent  and  swelling  tide  of 
his  indignant  feeling,  when  he  heard  of  Col.  Ellsworth's 
death,  he  was  almost  frightened  at  his  emotions. 
"  And  I  said:  'Suppose  my  Master  should  come  and 
say:  My  child,  what  are  you  doing  with  such  feel- 
ings? Where  is  My  teaching?  What  are  you  taking 
on  yourself  My  supreme  attribute  for?  Vengeance  is 
Mine,  I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord.'  Is  it  not  charm- 
ing how  these  texts  will  exorcise  the  Devil  ?  I  put 
that  passage  on  my  head  as  a  crown  and  I  have  felt 
as  peaceful  as  a  lamb  ever  since." 

"  Now,  my  brethren,  I  am  going  to  fight  this  battle 
right  straight  through  from  beginning  to  end,  and 
not  lose  my  Christian  feelings  either.  I  am  going  to 
stick  close  to  my  Saviour."  ' 

Earnestly  sharing  in  the  patriotic  ardor  which 
burned  in  the  North  after  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter, 
he  toiled  to  make  as  efficient  as  possible  the  forces 
which  were  to  crush  the  Rebellion.  Speaking  and 
writing  continually,  attending  military  drills,  sending 
two  of  his  sons  into  the  field,  equipping  them  with 
horses  and  arms,  preaching  in  camp,  comforting  the 
afflicted  whose  sons  had  fallen  in  the  fight,  turning 
his  own  home  into  a  store-house  for  military  goods 
and  his  church  into  a  rendezvous  for  the  soldiers 
who    were    hastening   to  the  long  battle-line  which 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  312-313. 


TOILING    FOR    LIBERTY    AND    THE    UNION.  275 

stretched  from  Fortress  Monroe  to  the  Mississippi, 
directing  his  wife  to  use  his  entire  salary,  beyond  the 
necessary  household  expenditures,  in  aiding  the 
patriotic  women  of  Plymouth  Church  who  were  pro- 
viding for  the  boys  at  the  front,  and  at  last  not  only 
fitting  out  two  regiments,  but  undertaking  the  task 
of  the  equipment  of  another,  the  Long  Island 
Volunteers,  he  radiantly  proved  his  faith  by  his 
patriotic  work  and  made  himself  equal  to  a  success- 
ful commander  on  the  field  in  the  reinforcement 
which  he  brought  to  the  National  cause. 

He  had  given  his  loving  confidence  to  a  personal 
Saviour  and  was  delivered  from  trembling  anxiety  in 
regard  to  his  own  flesh  and  blood,  exposed  to  the 
dangers  of  the  battle.  Good  humored,  as  full  of 
cheer  and  spiritual  life  as  ever,  he  imparted  of  his 
own  high  and  wholesome  spirit  to  a  great  multitude 
in  the  North  who  were  his  brethren  in  thinking  alike 
concerning  the  Republic. 

On  the  day  that  Plymouth  Church  contributed 
three  thousand  dollars  to  aid  in  equipping  the  Brook- 
lyn Fourteenth,  he  preached  one  of  the  most  inspir- 
ing of  all  his  sermons,  on  "The  National  Flag." 
Two  companies  of  that  regiment  were  among  his 
hearers.  No  better  literature  for  patriotic  school- 
books  can  be  found  than  some  parts  of  this  glowing 
sermon. 

"  This  Nation  has  a  banner,  too;  and  until  recently 
wherever  it  streamed  abroad  men  saw  daybreak 
bursting  on  their  eyes.  For  until  lately  the  American 
flag  has  been  a  symbol  of  Liberty,  and  men  rejoiced 
in  it.  Not  another  flag  on  the  globe  had  such  an 
errand,  or  went  forth  upon  the  sea,  carrying  every- 


276  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

where,  the  world  around,  such  hope  to  the  captive 
and  such  glorious  tidings.  The  stars  upon  it  were  to 
the  pining  nations  like  the  bright  morning  stars 
above,  and  the  stripes  upon  it  were  beams  of  morning 
light.  As  at  early  dawn  the  stars  shine  forth  even 
while  it  grows  light,  and  then  as  the  sun  advances 
that  light  breaks  into  banks  and  streaming  lines  of 
color,  the  glowing  red  and  intense  white  striving 
together  and  ribbing  the  horizon  with  bars  effulgent, 
so,  on  the  American  flag,  stars  and  beams  of  many- 
colored  light  shine  out  together.  And  wherever  this 
flag  comes,  and  men  behold  it,  they  see  in  its  sacred 
emblazonry  no  ramping  lion,  and  no  fierce  eagle;  no 
embattled  castles,  or  insignia  of  imperial  authority; 
they  see  the  symbols  of  light.  It's  the  banner  of 
Dawn.     It  means  Liberty. 

"If  one,  then,  asks  me  the  meaning  of  our  flag,  I 
say  to  him,  it  means  just  what  Concord  and  Lexing- 
ton meant,  what  Bunker  Hill  meant;  it  means  the 
whole  glorious  Revolutionary  War, which  was,  in  short, 
the  rising  up  of  a  valiant  young  people  against  an  old 
tyranny,  to  establish  the  most  momentous  doctrine 
that  the  world  had  ever  known, 'or  has  since  known, 
— the  right  of  men  to  their  own  selves  and  to  their 
liberties." 

"God  Almighty  be  thanked!  that,  when  base  and 
degenerate  Southern  men  desired  to  set  up  a  nefari- 
ous oppression,  at  war  with  every  legend  and  every 
instinct  of  old  American  history,  they  could  not  do  it 
under  our  bright  flag!  Its  stars  smote  them  with 
light  like  arrows  shot  from  the  bow  of  God.  They  must 
have  another  flag  for  such  work;  and  they  forged  an 
infamous  flag  to  do  an  infamous  work,  and,  God  be 


TOILING    FOR    LIBERTY    AND    THE    UNION.  277 

blessed!  left  our  bright  and  starry  banner  untainted 
and  untouched  by  disfigurement  and  disgrace!  I 
thank  them  that  they  took  another  flag  to  do  the 
Devil's  work,  and  left  our  flag  to  do  the  work  of  God!" 

"  Advanced  full  against  the  morning  light,  and 
borne  with  the  growing  and  glowing  day,  it  shall  take 
the  last  ruddy  beams  of  the  night,  and  from  the  At- 
lantic wave,  clear  across  with  eagle  flight  to  the 
Pacific,  that  banner  shall  float,  meaning  all  the  lib- 
erty which  it  has  ever  meant!  From  the  North, 
where  snows  and  mountain  ice  stand  solitary,  clear  to 
the  glowing  tropics  and  the  Gulf,  that  banner  that 
has  hitherto  waved  shall  wave  and  wave  for  ever, — 
every  star,  every  band,  every  thread  and  fold,  signifi- 
cant of  Liberty!  "  : 

A  sermon  preached  in  May,  1861,  on  "  The  Camp, 
Its  Dangers  and  Duties,"  is  so  wise,  comprehensive, 
and  pertinent  to  soldier  life,  that  it  might  well  be 
preached  before  every  military  encampment  to-day, 
as  a  preventive  of  barbarism,  an  antisepic  to  corrup- 
tion, an  inspiration  to  patriotism  and  morality.  Mr. 
Beecher's  serene  faith  in  the  triumph  of  the  good  old 
cause  found  expression  in  these  words:  "  I  have  not 
the  least  doubt  as  to  where  victory  will  issue;  I  have 
not  the  least  doubt  as  to  which  side  will  triumph.  I 
foresee  the  victory.  I  rejoice  in  it,  in  anticipation;  not 
because  it  is  to  be  on  our  side,  but  because  it  has 
pleased  God,  in  His  infinite  mercy,  to  make  Liberty 
our  side;  not  because  we  are  North,  and  they  are 
South,  but  because  we  have  civilization,  and  they  have 
barbarism;    because    we    stand    on    the    principle   of 


'"Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp*  290-293. 


278  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

equity  and  liberty,  and  they  stand  on  the  principle  of 
slavery  and  injustice."1 

His  Thanksgiving  discourse  for  1861  on  "  The 
Modes  and  Duties  of  Emancipation,"  and  a  sermon 
preached  on  the  first  anniversary  of  the  firing  on  Sum- 
ter, show  that  thorough  study  of  the  problems  on 
hand,  and  that  easy  grasp  of  great  principles,  which 
were  then  his  unconscious  preparation  for  his  memo- 
rable embassy  to  England  in  1863. 

In  the  first  of  these  sermons  he  strongly  urged  im- 
mediate emancipation,  if  that  were  consonant  with 
the  legitimate  powers  of  the  Constitution.  He 
favored  no  usurpation  of  power.  "  This  conflict  must 
be  carried  on  through  our  institutions,  not  over  them." 
He  believed  that  emancipation  had  already  begun. 
"Slaves  in  the  possession  of  the  United  States  can  be 
nothing  but  men."  He  showed  how  the  cotton- 
raising  South,  by  rebelling,  had  encouraged  free- 
labor  cotton  in  the  West  Indies,  Africa,  India,  and 
China.  "The  thunder  that  rocks  us  is  the  calm  that 
raises  cotton  in  other  lands." 

Emancipation  was  the  goal  to  which  everything 
pointed.  He  believed  also  that  the  great  conflict 
would  destroy  the  pestilent  heresy  of  State  Sove- 
reignty, and  bring  the  South  at  last  to  respect  the 
North.  "  The  people  who  congregate  at  our  fashion- 
able watering-places  are  not  always  the  best  expo- 
nents of  Northern  society.  The  other  place  where 
the  North  and  South  met  was  in  the  halls  of  Con- 
gress; and  Heaven  forbid  that  it  should  be  thought 
that  the  men   hitherto  there   had  fairly  represented 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  321. 


TOILING    FOR    LIBERTY    AND    THE    UNION.  279 

Northern  virtue  or  courage!  But  now  we  have  sent 
a  representative  body  that  we  are  quite  willing 
should  march  through  the  South  to  tell  them  what 
Northern  men  are,  and  what  Northern  men  can  do. 
By  the  time  our  army  has  gone  through  the  Southern 
States  there  will  be  a  change  in  public  opinion  there 
with  respect  to  the  manhood,  the  courage,  the  power, 
and  the  resources  of  the  North."  ! 

In  the  sermon  on  the  anniversary  of  Sumter,  he 
showed  that  the  year  past  had  been  the  heroic  and 
memorable  year  of  the  common  people  of  America. 
They  had  been  possessed  by  a  patriotic  excitement, 
not  an  unreasoning  and  furious  burst  of  patriotic 
zeal,  but  a  wise,  strong,  religious,  and  self-sacrificing 
patriotism.  The  year  had  shown  that  Northern  men 
made  splendid  soldiers,  better  even  than  those  of  the 
South,  because  of  better  moral  material.  He  closed 
his  discourse  with  a  trumpet  peal  of  faith  and  exulta- 
tion which  might  almost  have  pierced  to  the  shores  of 
England.  "  We  will  give  every  dollar  that  we  are 
worth,  every  child  that  we  have,  and  our  own  selves; 
we  will  bring  all  we  are  and  all  that  we  have,  and 
offer  them  up  freely;  but  this  country  shall  be  one 
and  undivided.  We  will  have  one  Constitution,  and 
one  Liberty,  and  that  universal.  The  Atlantic  shall 
sound  it,  and  the  Pacific  shall  echo  it  back,  deep  an- 
swering to  deep,  that  shall  reverberate  from  the 
Lakes  on  the  North  to  the  unfrozen  Gulf  on  the 
South — '  One  Nation,  One  Constitution,  one  Starry 
Banner!'  Hear  it,  England,  one  country  and  indivis- 
ible!    Hear  it,  Europe,  one   people  and  inseparable. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  338. 


280  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

One  God,  one  hope,  one  baptism,  one  Constitution, 
one  Government,  one  Nation,  one  country,  one  peo- 
ple— cost  what  it  may,  we  will  have  it!"  ' 

Had  it  not  been  that  the  fire  which  glowed  in  these 
words  pervaded  the  whole  North,  there  would  have 
been  no  victory  for  Freedom  in  that  battle  of  giants, 
and  no  paean  of  triumph,  such  as  Lowell  poured  forth 
in  his  great  Commemoration  Ode  at  the  close  of  the 
war. 

The  six  months  that  followed  were  a  time  of  great 
disheartenment  to  the  National  cause.  The  noble 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  the  pride  and  hope  of  the 
North,  was  not  led  by  General  McClellan  to  victory. 
Military  disasters  made  strong  men  weary  of  the  long 
agony  of  war.  The  daily  tidings  from  the  front 
delayed  hope  and  made  the  patriot  heart-sick.  There 
was  no  definite  emancipation  policy  yet  disclosed  by 
the  President,  and  the  war  lacked  moral  enthusiasm 
and  uplift.  Whittier  gave  immortal  expression  to  the 
agony,  and  prayer,  and  faith  of  those  who  saw  the 
Republic  waiting  beneath  God's  furnace  blast,  "  the 
pangs  of  transformation." 

"  O  brother !  if  thine  eye  can  see 
Tell  how  and  when  the  end  shall  be, 
What  hope  remains  for  thee  and  me. 

Then  Freedom  sternly  said:  'I  shun 
No  strife  nor  pang  beneath  the  sun, 
Where  human  rights  are  staked  and  won. 

I  knelt  with  Ziska's  hunted  flock, 
I  watched  in  Toussaint's  cell  of  rock, 
I  walked  with  Sidney  to  the  block. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  358. 


TOILING    FOR    LIBERTY   AND    THE    UNION.  28 1 

The  Moor  of  Marston  felt  my  tread, 
Through  Jersey's  snows  the  march  I  led, 
My  voice  Magenta's  charges  sped.'  " 

Thus,  in  his  vision  of  The  Watchers,  he  sang  of  Free- 
dom's colloquy  with  Peace,  and  the  sad  strains  end,  as 
the  vision  passed  away,  in  these  words  of  faith: 
"But  round  me,  like  a  silver  bell 
Rung  down  the  listening  sky  to  tell 
Of  holy  help,  a  sweet  voice  fell : 
•Still  hope  and  trust,' it  sang; 'the  rod 
Must  fall,  the  wine-press  must  be  trod, 
But  all  is  possible  with  God.' " 

Mr.  Beecher  urged  and  urged  the  National  Govern- 
ment to  announce  a  clear,  positive  anti-slavery  pro- 
gramme. Since  his  editorship  of  The  Independent 
began  he  had  made  that  journal  a  leading  force  in 
the  great  National  struggle.  After  the  capture  of 
Mason  and  Slidell  he  had  written  with  moderation, 
and  yet  with  great  boldness,  on  "  war  with  England," 
and  his  words  were  destined  to  be  perverted  and 
turned  against  him,  when  he  himself  appeared  in 
England  as  the  advocate  of  the  Union  cause.  He 
had  urged  Congress  to  impose  on  the  people  every 
tax  which  was  needed  to  make  the  war  the  most 
effective.  He  had  urged  the  pulpit  to  inspire  the 
people  with  a  new  willingness  to  make  sacrifices  for 
the  life  and  glory  of  the  Nation. 

In  the  summer  of  1862  his  pen  was  probably 
mightier  than  any  voice,  in  making  clear  to  the 
people  and  to  the  Government  the  truth  that  slavery 
must  be  destroyed.  With  a  passionate  energy  of 
remonstrance  he  wrote  against  the  dilatoriness  and 
apparent  timidity  of  the  President. 


282  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

"  We  have  a  country.  We  have  a  cause.  We  have 
a  people.  Let  all  good  men  pray  that  God  will  give 
us  a  Government !  " 

"  There  is  no  use  of  concealing  it.  The  people  are 
beginning  to  distrust  their  rulers — not  their  good 
nature,  their  patriotism,  their  honesty,  but  their 
capacity  for  the  exigency  of  military  affairs.  They 
know  that  in  war  an  hour  often  carries  a  campaign 
in  its  hand.  A  day  is  a  year.  The  President  seems 
to  be  a  man  without  any  value  of  time." 

These  judgments  were  natural  enough  to  a  man 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  prophet-like  vision,  not  charged 
himself  with  the  responsibilities  of  the  President, 
whose  great  mind  surveyed  the  whole  field  of  the 
Nation's  life,  and  who,  when  he  finally  took  a  step, 
planned  to  carry  with  him  the  consent  of  the  great 
body  of  the  people,  many  of  them  sluggish,  indiffer- 
ent, and  naturally  opposed  to  a  vigorous  anti-slavery 
policy. 

"  The  South  adjourns  every  question,  and  post- 
pones every  interest  in  favor  of  arms.  The  North  is 
busy  with  conflicting  schemes  and  interests — and  is 
also  mildly  carrying  on  a  war." 

"  Slavery  has  become  a  military  question.  One 
year  has  changed  all  things.  A  remiss  and  vacillat- 
ing policy  of  the  Administration;  the  committing  of 
the  armies  of  the  United  States  for  a  whole  year  to  a 
man  who  thought  he  was  at  West  Point  giving  a  four 
years'  course  of  instruction  to  five  hundred  men 
infinitely  at  leisure,  has  changed  the  relations  and 
possibilities  of  things.  It  has  taken  slavery  out  of 
the  realm  of  discussion,  and  placed  it  in  the  arena  of 
war." 


TOILING    FOR   LIBERTY    AND    THE    UNION.  283 

"  Nothing  will  unite  this  people  like  a  bold  annun- 
ciation of  a  moral  principle.  Let  the  American  flag 
be  lifted  up  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  was  the  brazen  ser- 
pent, and  let  it  be  known  that  every  man  who  looked 
upon  it  on  this  continent  shall  be  free,  and  the  tide 
of  joy  and  irresistible  enthusiasm  will  sweep  away 
every  obstacle." 

"  Great  God,  what  a  people  hast  Thou  brought 
forth  upon  this  continent!  What  love  of  liberty; 
what  heroic  love  of  law  and  institutions;  what  cour- 
age and  constancy  and  self-sacrifice  hast  Thou  given 
them!  and  no  man  is  found  to  lead  this  so  great  a 
Nation!  Be  Thou  Leader!  Lord  God  of  Hosts,  hast 
Thou  forgotten  how  to  lead  a  people?  There  are  no 
ages  on  Thy  head!  Years  make  Thee  neither  old  nor 
weary!  Behind  thy  unwrinkled  brow  no  care  dwells! 
Teach  this  people  to  heed  no  other  Leader  than  Thy- 
self! Then,  led  by  Thee,  teach  them  to  be  all-suffi- 
cient for  every  need  of  justice,  and  omnipotent  for 
liberty." 

This  prayerful  outburst  reminds  one  of  certain 
lines  on  Lincoln  in  Lowell's  great  Ode: 

"For  him  her  Old  World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 
And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 
Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead." 

"We  have  been  made  irresolute,  indecisive,  and 
weak  by  the  President's  attempt  to  unite  impossibili- 
ties; to  make  war  and  keep  the  peace;  to  strike  hard 


284  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

and  not  hurt;  to  invade  Southern  States  and  not 
meddle  with  their  sovereignty;  to  put  down  rebellion 
without  touching  its  cause." 

"  The  President  has  the  right  and  power  to  destroy 
slavery.  Let  him  account  to  the  civilized  world  for 
not  doing  it." 

"  Richmond  determines,  Washington  reasons ; 
Richmond  is  inflexible,  Washington  vacillates  ;  Rich- 
mond knows  what  it  wants  to  do,  Washington  wishes 
that  it  knew;  Richmond  loves  slavery  and  hates 
liberty,  Washington  is  somewhat  partial  to  liberty 
and  rather  dislikes  slavery;  rebellion  is  wise  and 
simple,  Government  is  foolish." 

But  what  an  outburst  of  jubilation  rose  from  Mr. 
Beecher's  pulpit  and  editorial  sanctum  when  the 
President's  Proclamation  of  September,  1862,  an- 
nounced that  on  the  first  day  of  the  New  Year 
slaves  in  rebelling  States  were  to  be  thenceforward 
and  for  ever  free. 

"  The  President's  Proclamation  will  sift  the  North, 
give  unity  to  its  people,  simplicity  to  its  policy, 
liberty    to    its    army  !  The    Proclamation 

emancipates  slaves  in  thrice  thirty  days.  But  it 
emancipates  the  Government  and  the  army  to-day." 

"  God  may  peel  me,  and  bark  me,  and  strip  me  of 
my  leaves,  and  do  as  He  chooses  with  my  earthly 
estate.  I  have  lived  long  enough;  I  have  had  a  good 
time.  You  cannot  take  back  the  blows  I  have  given 
the  Devil  right  in  the  face.  I  have  uttered  some 
words  that  will  not  die,  because  they  are  incorporated 
into  the  lives  of  men  that  will  not  die."1 


>"  Biography,"  p.  337. 


TOILING    FOR    LIBERTY    AND    THE    UNION.  285 

In  a  sermon,  preached  a  few  days  after  Lincoln's 
September  Proclamation,  on  National  Injustice  and 
Penalty,  among  other  notable  things  he  said  that 
infidelity  "  is  refusing  to  hear  God's  voice,  and  to 
believe  God's  testimony  in  His  providence.  There 
are  plenty  of  men  who  believe  in  Genesis,  and  Chron- 
icles, and  the  Psalms,  and  Isaiah,  and  Daniel,  and 
Ezekiel,  and  Matthew,  and  the  other  evangelists,  and 
the  rest  of  the  New  Testament  clear  down  to  the 
Apocalypse;  there  are  plenty  of  men  who  believe  in 
the  letter  of  Scripture;  and  there  are  plenty  of  men 
who  believe  everything  that  God  said  four  thousand 
years  ago;  but  the  Lord  God  Almighty  is  walking 
forth  at  this  time  in  clouds  and  thunder  such  as  never 
rocked  Sinai.  His  voice  is  in  all  the  land,  and  in  all 
the  earth,  and  those  men  that  refuse  to  hear  God  in 
His  own  time,  and  in  the  language  of  the  events  that 
are  taking  place,  are  infidels."1 

Speaking  of  what  should  be  the  policy  of  the  future, 
he  referred  to  that  class  of  men  who  believe  that  the 
remedy  for  all  these  evils  was  to  gather  together 
about  twenty  Secessionists  and  twenty  Abolitionists 
and  hang  them!  "  I  would  tell  you  what  hanging 
Abolitionists  will  do.  It  will  do  just  exactly  what 
would  be  done  if,  when  a  terrible  disease  had  broken 
out  on  a  ship,  the  crew  should  kick  the  doctors  over- 
board, and  the  medicine  after  them.  The  disease 
would  stay  on  board  and  only  the  cure  would  go 
overboard.  You  may  rage  as  much  as  you  please,  but 
the  men  who  labored  to  bring  back  the  voices  of  the 
founders  of  this  Union;  the  men  whose  faith  touches 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  276. 


286  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

the  original  principles  of  God's  Word;  the  men  who 
are  in  sympathy  with  Luther;  the  men  that  breathe 
the  breath  that  fanned  the  flame  of  the  Revolution; 
the  men  who  walk  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  Puritans; 
the  men  that  are  like  the  first  framers  of  this  model 
Republic, — they  are  the  men,  if  there  be  any  medicine 
yet,  by  whose  hand  God  will  send  the  cure.  Hang 
them  ?  That  was  the  medicine  that  the  Jews  had 
when  they  crucified  Christ.  The  Lord  of  Glory  was 
put  upon  an  ignominious  tree  and  they  thought  they 
would  have  peace  in  Jerusalem!  "  l 

On  the  first  of  January,  1863,  President  Lincoln 
issued  a  proclamation  which  filled  the  North  with  a 
new  hope,  that  proclamation  on  which  he  invoked 
not  in  vain  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and 
the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God.  Eighteen  hun- 
dred and  sixty-three  was  the  year  of  Vicksburg  and 
Gettysburg  and  the  greatest  year  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
life,  for  then  he  finished,  as  Dr.  Holmes  well  said,  "  a 
more  remarkable  embassy  than  any  envoy  who  has 
represented  us  in  Europe  since  Franklin  pleaded  the 
cause  of  the  young  Republic  at  the  court  of  Ver- 
sailles." 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  377. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

"you  wonder  why    we're  HOT,  JOHN?" 

Mr.  Beecher's  visit  to  England,  in  1863,  was  an 
international  event.  His  service  to  the  cause  of 
liberty  and  of  the  American  Union  was  also  a  service 
to  all  the  English-speaking  nations  which  are  bound 
together  by  so  many  of  the  strongest  ties.  The 
lion-like  courage,  the  lightning  wit,  the  invincible 
good  nature,  the  marvelous  pluck  and  perseverance, 
the  mastery  of  the  complicated  case  in  hand  in  all  its 
details,  the  glowing  patriotism,  the  fiery  indignation, 
the  intense  love  for  what  was  best  in  Old  England, 
the  ardent  Christian  convictions,  vitalizing  and 
inspiring  every  sentence,  and  lifting  the  American 
ambassador  of  freedom  to  heights  of  noble  eloquence 
rarely  equaled  in  the  annals  of  English  oratory, 
make  this  episode  in  Mr.  Beecher's  life  a  page  of  his- 
tory destined  to  be  lustrous  through  many  generations. 

Worn  out  by  his  toils,  which  had  been  almost 
uninterrupted  since  Lincoln's  election  in  i860,  sharing 
in  all  of  the  vast  excitements  of  the  first  two  dreadful 
years  of  the  Civil  War,  Mr.  Beecher  decided,  in  the 
summer  of  1863,  that  two  or  three  months  spent  in 
Europe  would  add  to  his  future  ability  to  serve  the 
Nation  at  home. 

Accompanied  by  Dr.  John  Raymond,  President  of 
Vassar  College,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Holme,  he  embarked  for 


288  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

England,  his  Church  agreeing  to  pay  all  of  his 
expenses.  Mr.  Beecher  was  not  sent  by  the  Govern- 
ment. Secretary  Seward  was  not  his  friend.  The 
great-hearted  Lincoln  loved  and  admired  him,  and, 
according  to  one  report,  deemed  him  the  greatest  of 
living  Americans.  But  he  had  criticised  the  President 
so  severely  and  constantly  that  he  supposed  that 
Lincoln  "  took  no  stock  "  in  him. 

Arriving  in  England,  and  finding  the  public  feeling 
bitterly  hostile  to  the  Union  cause,  he  would  not 
speak  there,  and  would  not  permit  any  one  to  pay  a 
penny  of  his  expenses.  Furthermore,  he  would  not 
enter  the  house  of  any  man  who  was  not  known  to  be 
a  friend  of  the  North  in  its  great  conflict. 

He  has  stated  that,  lying  on  his  back,  as  the  ship 
was  going  over,  uncomfortably  sick  nearly  all  the 
way,  he  spoke  thus  to  himself :  " '  I  have  no  doubt 
whatever  of  the  final  success  of  this  cause,  and  I  am 
perfectly  certain  that  slavery  is  going  with  it.  I  have 
been,  for  at  least  twenty-five  or  thirty  years,  studying 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  history  of 
the  debates,  and  laying  up  all  manner  of  material  for 
discussion  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  now  we  have 
got  so  far  along  that  this  question,  I  suppose,  is 
settled,  and  all  this  material  must  go  to  profit  and 
loss.  I  shall  never  want  to  use  it  again;  so  let  it  go.' 
Whereas,  in  point  of  fact,  all  these  accumulations  and 
investigations  were  brought  about  by  direct  Provi- 
dence in  an  unforeseen  way,  as  it  were,  to  enable  me 
to  go  through  the  campaign  that  I  afterward  entered 
into  in  England."  ' 


1  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  163. 


"you  wonder  why  we're  hot,  john?"      289 

He  was  met  at  the  Mersey  by  a  Manchester  commit- 
tee with  a  request  for  him  to  lecture,  but  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  not  to  speak  in  England.  A  personal  friend 
of  his,  Rev.  Dr.  Campbell,  had  said  before  his  arrival 
that  Mr.  Beecher  had  come  to  Europe  to  enjoy  him- 
self, while  his  country  was  in  sore  distress,  and  that 
he  was  greatly  mistaken  in  thinking  that  he  could 
twist  the  English  public  around  his  fingers  as  easily 
as  he  did  the  Americans. 

After  all,  Mr.  Beecher  did  speak  in  Glasgow  at  a 
temperance  breakfast,  with  the  understanding  that 
nothing  should  be  reported,  although  his  speech  ap- 
peared in  all  of  the  papers.  He  also  addressed  one 
hundred  and  fifty  Congregational  clergymen  in  Lon- 
don, whom  he  rebuked  for  their  want  of  sympathy 
with  the  cause  of  American  nationality  and  freedom. 
This  address  was  pronounced  by  Dr.  Henry  Allon  the 
best  of  Mr.  Beecher's  speeches.  He  was  greatly  dis- 
appointed to  find  that  the  English  Independents 
were  not  to  be  leaned  upon.  They  said  that  they  sym- 
pathized with  liberty,  but  "  they  sympathized  with 
liberty  exactly  as  an  icicle  sympathises  with  sunlight 
in  summer — it  chills  you  to  go  near  it."  He  found 
the  deepest  ignorance  in  regard  to  American  affairs 
and  institutions  among  people  where  he  had  a  right, 
as  he  felt,  to  expect  more  intelligence.  Of  all  men  he 
was  the  best  fitted  to  elucidate  and  disentangle  the 
dark  and  perplexed  problems  which  were  then  dis- 
tracting the  Old  World  and  the  New.  "An  American 
State  question,"  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  has  said, 
"  looks  as  mysterious  to  an  English  audience  as  an 
ear  of  Indian  corn  wrapped  up  in  its  sheath,  to 
an   English    wheat-grower.      Mr.    Beecher   husks   it 

19 


290  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

for  them  as  only  an  American  born  and  bred  can 
do."1 

Among  the  things  which  most  annoyed  him  in 
Great  Britain  was  England's  hypocritical  antipathy 
to  war,  that  is,  war  with  the  South.  At  the  reception 
given  to  him  on  his  return  to  Brooklyn,  he  said:  "No- 
where else  in  the  world  is  there  so  tender  a  con- 
science on  the  subject  of  war  as  England  has — when 
she  is  not  waging  it.  She  has  only  three  wars  now,  I 
believe,  on  hand, — in  Japan,  China,  New  Zealand, 
Australia,  or  somewhere — and  the  rest  of  her  leisure 
she  occupies  with  a  profound  regret  at  war!  If  it  was 
for  a  ship  at  sea,  she  was  ready  to  go  to  war  with  us; 
if  it  was  for  a  territory  on  the  Antarctic  Ocean,  she 
was  ready  to  go  to  war  with  the  savages;  if  to  open 
trade,  she  had  no  objection  to  burn  down  a  town  of 
a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants;  but  when  a  people 
are  making  war  for  their  own  life,  for  everything 
that  dignifies  humanity,  England  stands  wondering 
at  God's  patience  with  men  that  will  make  war."  2 

He  learned,  as  never,  before,  that  England,  as  rep- 
resented by  her  nobility,  dreaded  the  growing  influ- 
ence of  American  institutions.  "  As  a  class  they  are 
against  us,  and  for  most  obvious  reasons.  We  are 
not  accustomed  to  estimate  the  effect  of  our  example 
upon  European  institutions.  When  he  takes  his 
walk  abroad,  it  is  not  the  elephant  that  weighs  and 
measures  his  own  gravity  as  he  treads  on  the  field- 
mouse's  tail.  It  is  the  mouse  that  meditates.  And 
for  such  a  gigantic  nation  as  this,  on  such  a  continent 
as   this,  while  we   are  treading  the  steps   of  accom- 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  426.  a  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  663. 


"you  wonder  why  we're  hot,  john?"       291 

plishing  history,  we  do  not  feel  the  jar  we  ourselves 
make."  He  quotes  the  Saturday  Review,  that  brilliant 
and  "  unprincipled  paper,"  as  having  the  frankness  to 
say  that  English  criticisms  were  not  made  because 
they  disliked  us,  but  because  they  found  our  ideas 
and  examples  working  in  Great  Britain,  and  they 
were  forced,  in  order  to  defeat  those  ideas  in  England, 
to  attack  us  in  America. 

In  his  oration  upon  Abraham  Lincoln,  George 
Bancroft  said:  "  Aristocracy  had  gazed  with  terror 
on  the  growth  of  a  commonwealth  where  freeholds 
existed  by  the  million,  and  religion  was  not  in  bondage 
to  the  State;  and  now  they  could  not  repress  their 
joy  at  its  peril."  "  No  dynasty,"  wrote  Dr.  Holmes, 
"can  look  the  fact  of  successful,  triumphant  self- 
government  in  the  face  without  seeing  a  shroud  in 
its  banner  and  hearing  a  knell  in  its  shouts  of  vic- 
tory." While  the  English  sovereign  was  a  wise  and 
judicious  friend  of  the  national  cause,  and  while  the 
late  Prince  Consort  had  been  a  fast  friend  of  America, 
Mr.  Beecher  discovered  that  the  mass  of  the  English 
nobility  were  hostile. 

Resisting  the  invitations  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Union 
to  make  speeches  in  the  principal  cities,  he  hurried  to 
the  continent  in  a  towering  rage.  He  had  found 
nearly  all  the  leading  men  in  public  and  professional 
life,  many  of  the  Quakers,  and  nearly  everybody  who 
rode  in  a  first-class  car,  thoroughly  hostile  to  the 
American  cause,  while  most  of  the  Congregational 
ministers  of  Great  Britain,  excepting  those  in  Wales, 
were  either  lukewarm  or  sympathetic  with  the  South. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  664. 


292  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

"I  found  that  on  the  railways,  on  the  boats,  in  the 
hotels,  wherever  there  was  a  traveling  public,  there 
was  a  public  that  sympathized  with  the  South  and 
was  adverse  to  the  North."  "  No  man,"  he  said, 
"ever  knows  what  his  country  is  to  him  until  he  has 
gone  abroad  and  heard  it  everywhere  denounced  and 
sneered  at.  I  had  ten  men's  wrath  in  me,  and  my 
own  share  is  tolerably  large,  at  the  attitude  assumed 
ail  around  me  toward  my  country."1 

Here  we  have  one  proof  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  famous 
declaration  that  "  in  England  the  masses  have  usually 
been  right  and  the  classes  have  usually  been  wrong." 
At  the  close  of  his  address,  given  at  the  reception  in 
Brooklyn  on  his  return,  Mr.  Beecher  did  full  justice 
to  those  brave  Englishmen  of  eminence  who,  though 
a  small  minority,  did  stand  by  the  noblest  traditions 
of  English  history  during  those  fierce  and  fateful 
years  when  England,  as  never  before  or  since,  was 
divided  over  a  question  that  was  not  immediately  a 
part  of  her  own  politics. 

The  spirit  of  '76,  the  fiery  patriotism  that  had  come 
down  to  him  through  generations  of  elect  men,  and 
which  was  associated  with  every  fiber  of  his  manhood, 
with  every  Christian  conviction  of  his  soul,  and  with 
every  atom  of  his  vast  hope  for  humanity — all  this 
was  tugging  at  his  heart,  and  yet  he  determined  to 
remain  silent. 

For  several  months  he  traveled  through  France, 
Germany,  Switzerland,  Italy,  and  came  back  to  Paris. 
He  enjoyed  again  the  rich  art  treasures  of  Europe, 
and  his  spirit  was  refreshed  by  the  Swiss  scenery,  and 

•"Life,"  p.  166. 


"  YOU   WONDER    WHY    WE'RE    HOT,    JOHN  ?  "         293 

diverted  from  the  national  agony  which  had  almost 
worn  him  out. 

Mrs.  Stowe  reports  that  he  had  a  period  of  special 
enjoyment  in  Berlin,  where,  in  the  Museum,  under 
the  instruction  of  the  Director  of  Arts,  he  carefully 
examined  the  historical  collections,  so  ample  and  so 
scientifically  arranged,  which  mark  the  development 
of  European  art.  Dr.  Storrs,  in  his  eloquent  address 
of  welcome  on  Mr.  Beecher's  return,  said:  "The  rest 
and  leisure  of  those  weeks  upon  the  Continent  pre- 
pared him  not  only  to  face  the  rough  seas  that  have 
delayed  his  return  but  to  meet  and  master  the  more 
tempestuous  savagery  of  the  Liverpool  mob.  The 
Alpine  peaks  to  whose  summit  he  climbed  contrib- 
uted, no  doubt,  to  lift  him  afterward  to  the  climax  of 
his  eloquence  at  London  and  at  Manchester."  l 

The  news  of  the  surrender  of  Vicksburg  came  to 
him  in  Paris  on  Sunday  morning,  and  he  walked  to 
the  church  on  air.  Taking  a  seat  in  the  pew  of  the 
American  Minister,  Mr.  Dayton,  he  told  Mr.  Dayton's 
daughter,  and  a  friend  of  Miss  Dayton's,  who  was  in 
the  seat  with  her,  the  great  news.  The  scene  that 
followed  is  worth  repeating  in  his  own  words. 
"  Then  we  rose  up  when  the  hymn  was  given  out. 
She  stood  at  my  side  and  began  to  sing,  and  as  she 
finished  one  line  she  broke  into  a  flood  of  tears 
and  down  she  sat,  and  down  sat  the  other,  and 
they  just  shook  they  were  so  overwhelmed  with 
feeling."  2 

But  the  news  of  Gettysburg  came  also  on  the  same 
blessed  Sunday,  and  in  his  elation  Mr.  Beecher  called 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  437.     '2   "  Life,"  p.  167. 


294  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

a  cab  and  hurried  with  the  glorious  tidings  to  Mr. 
Dayton's  house. 

"  In  the  Grand  Hotel  there  was  a  great  glass-cov- 
ered court,  and,  as  I  would  stand  at  the  landing  and 
look  down,  there  would  always  be  a  group  of  South- 
erners in  the  left-hand  corner.  It  had  come  to  be  a 
resort  of  theirs,  and  there  were  ever  so  many  there. 
Up  to  this  time,  when  I  had  walked  through,  I  would 
be  insulted  in  every  way  by  whistles  and  sneering 
remarks,  etc.,  and  they  would  tell  the  servants  to 
carry  messages  to  me  which  I  learned  afterward  the 
proprietor  would  not  allow  to  be  sent.  As  I  went  in 
this  day  of  the  double  victory,  there  they  sat,  a  dozen 
or  fifteen  of  them.  I  had  never  taken  any  notice  of 
them  hitherto,  not  the  least,  but  after  I  got  this  news 
I  walked  in  and  strode  right  down  in  front  of  them 
without  saying  a  word,  but  carrying  my  head  high, 
I  can  tell  you,  and  went  upstairs  to  my  room.  I  never 
saw  one  of  them  afterwards,  and  I  was  there  myself 
several  days."  * 

Returning  to  England,  he  was  again  urged  to  make 
speeches,  but  he  replied,  "  No,  I  am  going  home  in 
September;  I  do  not  want  to  have  anything  more  to 
do  with  England."  But  the  friends  of  America  finally 
changed  his  mind  by  showing  him  what  sacrifices 
they  had  made  for  the  national  cause,  and  that  if  he 
refused  them  his  help,  the  enemies  of  the  North 
would  say,  "  Even  your  friends  in  America  despise 
you."  It  must  have  been  a  hard  struggle  when  a 
cause,  supported  and  defended  by  John  Bright,  John 
Stuart    Mill,  the   Duke  of  Argyle,  Richard  Cobden, 

1  "  Life,"  p.  167-168. 


"you  wonder  why  we're  hot,  john?"       295 

W.  E.  Foster,  Goldwin  Smith,  Prof.  Cairns,  Mr. 
Thomas  Hughes,  George  Thompson,  and  a  score  of 
eminent  Englishmen  besides,  felt  the  need  of  such 
reinforcement  as  an  American  orator  could  bring 
them. 

Furthermore,  Mr.  Beecher  learned  that  there  was  a 
movement  on  foot  to  hold  great  meetings  among  the 
non-voting  masses  in  order  to  bring  about  a  change 
in  their  feelings.  He  learned  that  these  non-voting 
friends  of  the  North,  some  of  whom  like  the  cotton- 
spinners  of  Lancashire,  had  seen  their  children 
starving  and  in  rags  about  them,  rather  than  lift  one 
fingejr  for  slavery  or  do  one  thing  to  antagonize  the 
cause  of  free  labor,  were  an  immense  political  power 
respected  by  the  aristocracy  and  the  Government. 

It  was  fear  of  the  great,  true,  democratic  heart  of 
the  English  common  people  that  had  kept  Parlia- 
ment from  declaring  for  the  Confederacy.  The  spirit 
of  liberty  was  not  dead  in  the  non-voting  masses,  and 
all  efforts  to  hold  popular  meetings  in  behalf  of  slav- 
ery had  thus  far  been  unsuccessful.  Mr.  Cobden  had 
said  of  the  English  common  people  that  they  had  an 
instinctive  feeling  that  their  cause  was  bound  up  in 
the  prosperity  of  the  United  States. 

America  had  felt,  with  keen  agony,  that  the  moral 
sympathy  of  England  had  been  given  to  the  South 
and  to  slavery,  and  the  Northern  feeling  against 
Great  Britain  was  intense. 

"  You  wonder  why  we're  hot,  John  ? 
Your  mark  waz  on  the  guns, 
The  neutral  guns  thet  shot,  John, 
Our  brothers  an'  our  sons. 


296  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Ole  Uncle  S.,  sez  he,  I  guess 
There's  human  blood,  sez  he, 
By  fits  and  starts  in  Yankee  hearts. 
Though 't  may  surprise  J.  B. 
More'n  it  would  you  an'  me." 

"  The  denial  of  moral  sympathy  in  Great  Britain," 
said  Mr.  Beecher,  "  was  accompanied  by  the  most 
active  exertions  of  certain  parts  of  the  British  people 
in  behalf  of  the  South;  so  much  so  that  I  think  it 
will  scarcely  be  doubted  by  any  man  that  if  the  ship- 
yards, the  foundries,  the  looms,  and  the  shops  of 
Great  Britain  had  refused  their  succor  to  rebellion, 
the  rebellion  would  have  died  out  in  the  Nation  long 
ago."  ' 

The  English  Government  would  have  been  eager 
to  espouse  the  Southern  cause  had  it  not  been  that 
the  English  masses  were  still  true  to  America  and 
freedom.  It  was  shown  Mr.  Beecher  that  he  had  a 
mission  in  helping  to  keep  the  popular  heart  of 
England  loyal  to  its  own  best  convictions.  America 
and  the  better  England  will  always  be  grateful  that 
he  finally  yielded  to  the  importunate  arguments  of 
the  brave  and  enlightened  friends  of  the  North.  His 
service  in  strengthening  the  right-minded  elements 
among  the  English  people  and  in  heading  off  the 
incalculable  mischiefs  which  were  planned,  can 
scarcely  be  overestimated. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  659 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

CONQUERING    THE  MOB. 

Meetings  were  arranged  for  Manchester,  Glasgow, 
Edinburgh,  Liverpool,  and  London.  During  the 
time  preceding  his  opening  speech,  Mr.  Beecher  was 
in  one  of  his  most  despondent  and  afflicted  moods. 
There  was  an  unusual  deal  of  excitement  in  Man- 
chester over  the  approaching  event.  A  storm  was 
brooding.  The  streets  were  placarded  with  out- 
rageous posters  "  full  of  all  lies  and  bitterness." 
Some  of  the  placards  were  in  blood-red  letters.  The 
friends  who  met  Mr.  Beecher  were  greeted  by  him 
with  this  question:  "Are  we  going  to  back  down  ?" 
They  said  "  No,"  and  inquired  how  he  felt  about  it, 
and  were  made  happy  to  hear  him  say,  "  I  am  going 
to  be  heard,  and  if  not  now,  I  am  going  to  be  by  and 
by." 

After  preparing  the  notes  for  his  first  speech,  Mr. 
Beecher  passed  through  one  of  those  horrible  experi- 
ences of  darkness  and  agony  to  which  his  mind  was 
occasionally  subject.  He  felt  that  he  would  utterly 
fail  before  an  English  audience  in  the  advocacy  of 
the  cause  intrusted  to  him,  and  his  morbid  suffer- 
ings became  terrible  beyond  conception.  In  recalling 
this  experience  he  said:  "I  think  I  never  went 
through  such  a  struggle  of  darkness  and  suffering  in 


298  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER, 

all  my  life  as  I  did  that  afternoon.  It  was  about 
the  going  down  of  the  sun  when  God  brought  me  to 
that  state  in  which  I  said,  'Thy  will  be  done;  I  am 
willing  to  be  annihilated;  I  am  willing  to  fail  if  the 
Lord  wants  me  to;  I  give  it  all  up  to  the  hands  of 
God,'  and  rose  up  in  a  state  of  peace  and  of  serenity 
simply  unspeakable,  and  when  the  coach  came  to  take 
me  down  to  Manchester  Hall  I  felt  no  disturbance 
nor  dreamed  of  anything  but  success." 

No  one  can  rightly  understand  some  of  the  later 
experiences  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life  who  does  not  realize 
into  what  depths  his  spirit  sometimes  sank,  and  to 
what  heights  it  often  suddenly  rose  with  a  divine 
resilient  energy.  Writing  to  a  friend  ten  days  later 
he  could  say,  "  I  have  had  the  sweetest  experience  of 
love  to  God  and  man  of  all  my  life." 

"God  awakened  in  my  breast  the  desire  to  be  a  true 
and  full  Christian  towards  England  the  moment  I  put 
foot  on  her  shores." 

"  I  had  at  Liverpool  and  Glasgow  as  sweet  an 
inward  peace  as  ever  I  had  in  any  of  the  loving  meet- 
ings in  dear  old  Plymouth  Church." 

"  And  again  and  again  when  the  uproar  raged  and 
I  could  not  speak,  my  heart  seemed  to  be  taking  the 
infinite  fulness  of  the  Saviour's  pity  and  breathing  it 
out  on  those  poor  troubled  men." 

"  I  have  had  no  disturbance  of  personality.  I  have 
been  willing,  yea,  with  eagerness,  to  be  myself  con- 
temptible in  men's  sight  if  only  my  disgrace  could  be 
to  the  honor  of  that  cause  which  is  intrusted  to  our 
own  dear  country." 

"  There  passes  before  me  a  view  of  God's  glory,  so 
pure,  so  serene,  uplifted,  filling  the  ages,  and  more  and 


CONQUERING  THE  MOB.  299 

more  revealed,  that  I  almost  wish  to  lose  my  own 
identity,  to  be  a  drop  of  dew  that  falls  into  the  sea 
and  becomes  a  part  of  the  sublime  whole  that  glows 
under  every  line  of  latitude  and  sounds  on  every 
shore." 

"  And  in  all  this  time  I  have  not  had  one  unkind 
feeling  toward  a  single  human  being.  Even  those 
who  are  opposers  I  have  pitied  with  undying  compas- 
sion, and  enemies  around  me  have  seemed  harmless 
and  objects  of  charity  rather  than  potent  foes  to  be 
destroyed."  : 

It  is  evident  that  a  man  capable  of  passing  through 
such  experiences  was  liable  to  pass  through  others  in 
which  his  words  could  not  wisely  be  judged  by  the 
ordinary  standards  of  average  men. 

His  speech  in  Manchester  was  delivered  October 
9th.  When  he  reached  the  hall  the  vast  crowd  was 
already  tumultuous,  but  he  felt  victory  in  his  blood. 
The  Chairman  introduced  him  as  one  of  the  American 
heroes,  and,  much  to  his  amusement,  called  him  the 
Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  Stowe  !  About  six  thou- 
sand persons  were  present,  and  among  them  partisans 
of  the  Southern  cause.  The  deafening  cheers  with 
which  Mr.  Beecher  was  received  were  followed  by 
hisses.  He  said,  in  recalling  the  experiences  of  that 
night,  "  As  soon  as  I  began  to  speak  the  great 
audience  began  to  show  its  teeth,  and  I  had  not  gone 
on  fifteen  minutes  before  an  unparalleled  scene  of  con- 
fusion and  interruption  ensued.  No  American  who 
has  not  seen  an  English  mob  can  form  any  concep- 
tion of  one.     This  meeting  had  a  very  large  multitude 


1  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  pp.  560-563. 


3<X>  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  men  in  it  who  came  there  for  the  purpose  of  destroy- 
ing the  meeting  and  carrying  it  the  other  way  when 
it  came  to  a  vote."  ' 

He  measured  his  audience,  and  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  one-fourth  of  them  were  opposed  to  him 
and  one-fourth  were  sympathetic,  and  that  his  proper 
plan  would  be  to  appeal  to  the  great  middle  section, 
who  were  uncommitted.  "How  to  do  this  was  a 
problem.  The  question  was  who  could  hold  out  the 
longest.  There  were  five  or  six  storm  centers  boil- 
ing and  whirling  all  at  one  time;  here  some  one  pound- 
ing on  a  group  with  his  umbrella,  and  shouting,  '  Sit 
down  there  '  ;  over  there  a  row  between  two  or  three 
combatants  ;  somewhere  else  a  group  all  yelling  to- 
gether at  the  top  of  their  voices.  It  was  like  talking 
to  a  storm  a   sea."  a 

In  another  account  of  his  experience  with  English 
mobs  he  said  :  "  I  had  to  speak  extempore  on  sub- 
jects the  most  delicate  and  difficult  as  between  our 
two  nations,  where  even  a  shading  of  my  words  was 
of  importance,  and  yet  I  had  to  outscream  a  mob, 
and  drown  the  roar  of  a  multitude.  It  was  like  driv- 
ing a  team  of  runaway  horses  and  making  love  to  a 
lady  at  the  same  time."  3 

In  his  Manchester  experience  Mr.  Beecher  was 
getting  ready  for  Liverpool.  He  threw  away  his 
notes,  and,  with  perfect  self-possession  and  perfect 
good  temper,  put  his  whole  force  into  the  tremen- 
dous conflict.  "  The  uproar  would  come  in  on  this 
side  and  on  that,  and  they  would  put  in  insulting  ques- 


1  "  Life,"  p.  171.     9  "  Life,"  p.  172. 

'  Mrs.  Stowe's  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  p.  560. 


CONQUERING  THE  MOB.  301 

tions  and  all  sorts  of  calls  to  me,  and  I  would  wait 
until  the  noise  had  subsided,  and  then  get  in 
about  five  minutes  of  talk.  The  reporters  would 
get  that  down,  and  then  up  would  come  another 
noise."  ' 

After  the  first  interruption  he  said:  "My  friends, 
we  will  have  a  whole  night's  session,  but  we  will  be 
heard.  I  have  not  come  to  England  to  be  surprised 
that  those  men,  whose  cause  cannot  bear  the  light,  are 
afraid  of  free  speech."  Mr.  Beecher  was  immensely 
amused  by  some  things  which  occurred,  and  once 
could  not  refrain  from  laughing  outright.  "  The  au- 
dience stopped  its  uproar,  wondering  what  I  was 
laughing  at,  and  that  gave  me  another  chance,  and  I 
caught  it." 

With  great  skill  he  linked  the  American  cause  to 
that  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  the  world  over,  and 
especially  with  that  which  is  best  in  English  history. 
"  I  covet  no  higher  honor  than  to  have  my  name 
joined  to  the  list  of  that  great  company  of  noble 
Englishmen  from  whom  we  derived  our  doctrines  of 
liberty." a 

What  were  called  American  ideas  were  simply  Eng- 
lish ideas  bearing  fruit  in  America. 

"We  bring  back  American  sheaves,  but  the  seed 
corn  we  got  in  England:  and  if,  on  a  larger  sphere 
and  under  circumstances  of  unobstruction,  we  have 
reared  mightier  harvests,  every  sheaf  contains  the 
grain  that  has  made  old  England  rich  for  a  hundred 
years."  We  are  not  surprised  that  such  words  were 
followed  by  great  cheering. 


1  "  Life,"  p.  172.     2  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  439. 


302  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Alluding  to  the  words  that  he  had  spoken  in  Amer- 
ica which  had  given  offense  in  England,  he  said:  "I 
have  had  one  simple,  honest  purpose  which  I  have 
pursued  ever  since  I  have  been  in  public  life,  and  that 
was  with  all  the  strength  that  God  has  given  me  to 
maintain  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  weak  in  my 
country,  and,  if  in  the  heightened  heat  of  conflict, 
some  words  have  been  over-sharp,  and  some  positions 
have  been  taken  heedlessly,  are  you  the  men  to  call 
one  to  account?  What  if  some  exquisite  dancing- 
master,  standing  on  the  edge  of  a  battle  where  Richard 
Cceur  de  Lion  swung  his  axe,  criticised  him  by  say- 
ing that  his  gestures  and  postures  violated  the  pro- 
prieties of  polite  life!  When  dandies  fight  they  think 
how  they  look,  but  when  men  fight  they  think  only 
of  deeds."  He  disclaimed  being  there  either  on  trial 
or  on  defense. 

"  I  have  never  ceased  to  feel  that  war  or  even  un- 
kind feelings  between  two  such  great  nations  would 
be  one  of  the  most  unpardonable  and  atrocious  of- 
fenses that  the  world  ever  beheld,  and  I  have  regarded 
everything  that  needlessly  led  to  those  feelings  out 
of  which  war  comes  as  being  in  itself  wicked."  ' 

He  showed  that  American  resentment  against  Eng- 
land was  greater  than  against  France,  because  Amer- 
ica had  so  much  in  common  with  the  English  people. 
Love  toward  England  had  been  growing,  and  Eng- 
land's conduct  offended  Ameria  more  than  that  of 
France.  If  intemperate  words  had  been  spoken 
against  England,  they  were  uttered  in  the  mortifica- 
tion   of   disappointed    affection.     What  America  ex- 


1  •'  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  440-441. 


CONQUERING  THE  MOB.  303 

pected  of  liberty-loving  England  was  moral  sympathy 
and  nothing  more. 

He  had  no  doubt  about  the  issue  of  the  conflict. 
Population,  wealth,  intellect,  and  justice  were  with 
the  North,  and  before  long  one  thing  more  would  be 
added — victory.  He  showed  that  the  conflict  between 
the  two  sections  in  America  was  between  liberty  and 
slavery,  and  that  hence  the  popular  sympathy  of  Eng- 
land must  be  with  the  North  when  the  facts  became 
known. 

The  address  at  Manchester  was  largely  a  history  of 
the  political  movements  which  had  gone  on  for  half  a 
century  and  which  resulted  in  a  division  over  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery.  He  acknowledged  that  the  North 
had  not  been  utterly  free  from  complicity  with  op- 
pression. 

"For  years  together  New  York  has  been  as  much 
controlled  by  the  South,  in  matters  relating  to  slavery, 
as  Mobile  or  New  Orleans.  But,  even  so,  the  slave- 
trade  was  clandestine.  It  abhorred  the  light;  it  crept 
in  and  out  of  the  harbor  stealthily,  despised  and  hated 
by  the  whole  community.  Is  New  York  to  be  blamed 
for  demoniac  deeds  done  by  her  limbs  while  yet 
under  possession  of  the  devil?  She  is  now  clothed, 
and  in  her  right  mind.  There  was  one  Judas:  is 
Christianity  therefore  a  hoax?  There  are  hissing 
men  in  this  audience:  are  you  not  respectable?  The 
folly  of  the  few  is  the  light  which  God  casts  to  irra- 
diate the  wisdom  of  many." 

Punctured  by  cheers,  laughter,  hisses,  and  cries  of 
"  Hear,"  the  oration  proceeded.  After  defending  the 
Constitution  as  an  anti-slavery  document,  he  showed 
how  the  laws  of  the  slave  States  treated  slaves,  not  as 


304  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

human  beings,  but  as  "chattels,"  which  is  the  same 
word  as  "  cattle,"  with  the  "  h  "  left  out,  the  difference 
being  between  quadruped  and  biped.  The  Constitu- 
tion spoke  of  slaves  as  "  persons,"  the  laws  of  the 
slave  States  called  them  "  things." 

"  Go  to  Mississippi,  the  State  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
and  her  fundamental  law  pronounces  the  slave  to  be 
only  a 'thing';  and  again  the  Federal  Constitution 
sounds  back  '  persons.'  Go  to  Louisiana  and  its  Con- 
stitution, and  still  the  doctrine  of  devils  is  enunciated — 
it  is  'chattel,'  it  is  'thing.'  Looking  upon  those  for 
whom  Christ  felt  mortal  agony  in  Gethsemane  and 
stretched  himself  out  for  death  on  Calvary,  their  laws 
call  them  '  things'  and  '  chattels'  ;  and  still  in  tones 
of  thunder  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  says 
'  persons.'  "  ' 

How  keenly  he  depicted  the  evil  effects  on  morality 
which  the  growing  profitableness  of  slavery  had  pro- 
duced !  The  great  demand  for  cotton  throughout 
the  world,  and  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  sent 
up  the  price  of  slaves.  "  Slaves  that  before  had  been 
worth  from  three  to  four  hundred  dollars,  began  to 
be  worth  six  hundred;  that  knocked  away  one-third 
of  the  adherence  to  the  moral  law.  Then  they  became 
worth  seven  hundred  dollars,  and  one-half  the 
law  went;  then  eight  and  nine  hundred  dollars,  and 
then  there  was  no  such  a  thing  as  moral  law;  then 
one  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  dollars,  and  slavery 
became  one  of  the  beatitudes."11 

After  a  rapid  and  pointed  history  of  the  American 
slavery  contest  he  turned  his  quick  fire  on  the  attempt 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  448.     3 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  449. 


CONQUERING    THE    MOB.  305 

to  make  England  believe  that  war  had  nothing  to  do 
with  slavery.  "  It  had  to  do  with  nothing  else." 
"Against  this  withering  fact — against  this  damning 
allegation — what  is  their  escape?  They  reply,  '  The 
North  is  just  as  bad  as  the  South.'  Now  we  are 
coming  to  the  marrow  of  it.  If  the  North  is  as  bad 
as  the  South,  why  did  not  the  South  find  it  out  before 
you  did  ?  If  the  North  had  been  in  favor  of  oppress- 
ing the  black  man,  and  just  as  much  in  favor  of 
slavery  as  the  South,  how  is  it  that  the  South  has 
gone  to  war  with  the  North  because  they  believe  to 
the  contrary  ?" 

Mr.  Beecher  paid  some  attention  to  the  credulous 
president  of  the  Society  for  Southern  Independence, 
Lord  Wharncliffe,  who  was  laboring  to  remove  the 
erroneous  impression  that  the  efforts  of  the  South 
tended  "  to  support  the  existence  of  slavery!  "  That 
such  silliness  as  Lord  Wharncliffe  represented  was 
believed  by  any  large  portion  of  English  society  is  an 
evidence  of  the  extremes  to  which  prejudice  and  mis- 
representation may  be  carried.  Mr.  Beecher's  expo- 
sure of  his  lordship's  folly  was  as  complete  and  lumin- 
ous as  a  sunburst  and  at  times  as  terrific  as  a  sheaf  of 
forked  lightnings. 

In  this  speech  he  struck  down  Lord  Brougham's 
objection,  a  very  common  one  in  England  at  that 
time,  that  the  North  was  fighting  for  the  Union  and 
not  for  emancipation.  The  Union  administered  by 
Northern  men  would  work  out  emancipation.  The 
maintenance  of  the  Union  was  the  best  way  to  secure 
to  the  African  his  rights. 

"The  North  was  like  a  ship  carrying  passengers, 
tempest  tossed,  and  while  the  sailors  were  laboring 
20 


306  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

and  the  captain  and  officers  directing,  some  of  the 
grumblers  came  up  from  amongst  the  passengers  and 
said:  '  You  are  all  the  time  working  to  save  the  ship, 
but  you  don't  care  to  save  the  passengers.'  I  should 
like  to  know  how  you  would  save  the  passengers  so 
well  as  by  taking  care  of  the  ship." ' 

An  interruption  was  made  at  this  point  by  the 
Chairman  to  announce  that  the  Government  was  to 
seize  and  detain  in  Liverpool  the  rams  prepared  to 
assist  the  South.  After  the  cheering  had  ceased  Mr. 
Beecher,  making  no  reference  to  the  interruption, 
continued  along  the  line  of  his  argument  and  spoke 
some  grand  words  about  the  colored  regiments,  who, 
fighting  for  liberty,  were  proving  the  manhood  of  the 
African  race. 

This  speech  was  reported  in  the  chief  papers  of  the 
Kingdom  and  it  was  discovered  that  Mr.  Beecher  was 
not  to  be  put  down  by  the  mob.  He  had  made  up 
his  mind  that  England  was  to  hear  him.  Since 
Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg,  Mr.  Beecher  had  not 
sunk  even  occasionally  into  those  hours  of  despond- 
ency in  regard  to  the  Nation.  Before  coming  to 
Great  Britain  he  had  felt  that  the  National  cause  was 
in  the  extremest  peril.  He  said,  "We  had  at  that 
time  converted  almost  every  sea-going  craft  into  a 
man-of-war,  and  this  blockade  was  in  the  main  well 
served.  Europe  stood  watching  as  a  vulture  does  to 
see  the  sick  lamb  or  kine  stagger  and  fall,  and  from 
her  dry  branch  of  observation  she  is  ready  to  plunge 
down.  Napoleon  did.  He  had  already  sent  French 
armies    into    Mexico.       That    was   a    mere    preface. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  463. 


CONQUERING    THE   MOB.  307 

Mexico  was  not  his  final  object.  The  recovering 
again  of  territory  that  had  once  belonged  to  France 
lay  in  the  achievements  and  expectations  of  this  weak 
and  wicked  potentate  in  the  future.  In  this  condi- 
tion of  things  we  were  hovering  on  the  very  edge  of 
intervention.  It  was  well  known,  by  those  acquainted 
with  the  condition  of  affairs  in  other  lands,  that 
Napoleon  was  disposed  by  every  art  and  intrigue  to 
persuade  the  Government  of  Great  Britain  to  inter- 
pose, to  break  the  blockade  and  to  give  its  moral 
support  to  the  rebellion  of  the  South."  ' 

He  had  found  in  England  almost  universal  skepti- 
cism as  to  the  success  of  the  North.  He  was  every- 
where told,  "  You  will  never  subdue  the  South,"  and 
he  always  answered,  "  We  shall  subdue  the  South." 
In  this  spirit  he  went  to  work  to  subdue  England,  for 
he  felt  that  it  was  of  the  utmost  importance  that 
right  views  should  prevail,  and  that  the  secret  hopes 
and  wishes  of  the  ruling  English  classes  should  get 
no  support  from  the  English  masses. 

"  As  martyrs  coin  their  blood,  he  coined  his  breath 
And  dimmed  the  preacher  s  in  the  patriot's  fame." 


In  describing  his  own  experience  after  that  tre- 
mendous first  night  in  Manchester  he  said:  "  Nobody 
knows  better  than  I  do  what  it  is  to  feel  that  every 
interest  that  touches  the  heart  of  a  Christian  man,  and 
a  patriotic  man,  and  a  lover  of  liberty,  is  being 
assailed  wantonly,  to  stand  between  one  nation  and 
your  own  and  feel  that  you  are  in  a  situation  in  which 
your  country  rises  or  falls  with  you.     And  God  was 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  399. 


308  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

behind  it  all:  I  felt  it  and  I  knew  it,  and  when  I  got 
through  and  the  vote  was  called  off  you  might  have 
thought  it  was  a  tropical  thunder-storm  that  swept 
through  that  hall  as  the  '  Ayes '  were  thundered, 
while  the  '  Noes  '  were  an  insignificant  and  contempt- 
ible minority.  It  had  all  gone  on  our  side,  and  such 
enthusiasm  I  never  saw."  ' 

1  '■  Life,"  p.  174, 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

THE    HEART    OF    BRUCE    RETURNS    TO    SCOTLAND. 

At  Glasgow,  on  the  13th  of  October,  he  gave  his 
second  address.  Perhaps  it  would  be  wiser  to  say, 
with  Dr.  Holmes,  that  he  made  a  single  speech  in 
Great  Britain,  delivering  it  piecemeal  in  different 
places.  Beginning  with  an  impassioned  eulogy  of 
Scotland,  he  thrilled  and  magnetized  the  crowded 
Glasgow  audience.  "  No  one  who  has  been  born  and 
reared  in  Scotland  can  know  the  feeling  with  which, 
for  the  first  time,  such  a  one  as  I  have  visited  this 
land,  classic  in  song  and  in  history.  I  have  been 
reared  in  a  country  whose  history  is  brief.  So  vast  is 
it,  that  one  might  travel  night  and  day  for  a  week  and 
yet  scarcely  touch  historic  ground.  Its  history  is  yet 
to  be  written,  yet  to  be  acted.  But  I  come  to  this 
land,  which,  though  small,  is  as  full  of  memories  as 
the  heaven  is  of  stars,  and  almost  as  bright.  There 
is  not  the  most  insignificant  piece  of  water  that  does 
not  make  my  heart  thrill  with  some  story  of  heroism, 
or  some  remembered  poem;  for  not  only  has  Scot- 
land had  the  good  fortune  to  have  had  men  who  knew 
how  to  make  history,  but  she  has  reared  those  bards 
who  have  known  how  to  sing  her  fame.  And  every 
steep  and  every  valley,  and  almost  every  single 
league  on  which  my  feet  have  trod  have  made  me  feel 


3IO  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

as  if  I  was  walking  in  a  dream.  I  never  expected  to 
feel  my  eyes  overflow  with  tears  of  gladness  that  I 
have  been  permitted  in  the  prime  of  life  to  look  upon 
dear  old  Scotland.  For  your  historians  have  taught  us 
history, your  poets  have  been  the  charm  of  our  firesides, 
your  theologians  have  enriched  our  libraries;  from 
your  philosophers — Reid,  Brown,  and  Stewart — we 
have  derived  the  elements  of  our  philosophy,  and 
your  scientific  researches  have  greatly  stimulated  the 
study  of  science  in  our  land.  I  come  to  Scotland 
almost  as  a  pilgrim  would  to  Jerusalem,  and  to  see  those 
scenes  whose  story  had  stirred  my  imagination  from 
my  earliest  youth:  and  I  can  pay  no  higher  compliment 
than  to  say  that,  having  seen  some  part  of  Scotland,. 
I  am  satisfied;  and  permit  me  to  say  that  if,  when 
you  know  me,  you  are  a  thousandth  part  as  satisfied 
with  me  as  I  am  with  you,  we  shall  get  along  very 
well  together."  Four  times  this  exordium  was  inter- 
rupted with  applause,  and  Mr.  Beecher  could  not 
have  more  wisely  begun  his  address  than  by  pouring 
out  his  grateful  heart  in  these  noble  words. 

Glasgow  was  the  headquarters  of  the  shipping 
interests  concerned  in  the  blockade.  Mr.  Beecher 
discussed  the  relations  of  slavery  to  the  working 
classes  everywhere  and  applied  his  arguments  to  the 
men  before  him  who  were  helping  to  degrade  the 
cause  of  labor  by  cooperating  with  the  South. 

He  has  himself  reported  that  the  interruptions  in 
Glasgow  were  very  bad,  but  not  at  all  like  those  in 
Manchester.  "  After  they  were  once  stilled  you 
would  have  thought  that  we  were  in  a  revival."  He 
demonstrated  that  the  cause  of  labor  was  one  in  all 
lands,  and  he  showed  how  slavery  brought  labor  into 


THE  HEART  OF  BRUCE  RETURNS  TO  SCOTLAND.     31I 

contempt,  and  that  it  was  a  shame  for  the  men  of 
Glasgow  to  be  building  ships  to  antagonize  free 
labor  in  America.  "They  were  driving  nails  in 
their  own  coffins."'  The  questions  put  to  him  here 
were  very  shrewd,  and  his  replies  involved  the  neces- 
sity of  explaining  how  the  North  was  hampered,  by 
its  obligations  under  the  Constitution  and  by  the 
reserved  rights  of  the  States,  from  interfering  with 
slavery  sheltered  by  law. 

Regarding  the  misrepresentations  scattered  broad- 
cast about  himself,  he  said,  that,  had  they  been 
wanting,  so  accustomed  had  he  been  to  misrepresen- 
tation in  his  own  land,  he  would  have  felt  that  some- 
thing was  lacking  in  the  English  atmosphere!  After 
pronouncing  that  ninty-nine  out  of  every  hundred  of 
those  things  charged  against  him  were  wholly  false- 
hoods he  said:  "  If  I  never  spared  my  own  country, 
if  I  never  spared  the  American  Church,  nor  the  Gov- 
ernment, nor  my  own  party,  nor  my  personal  friends, 
did  you  expect  that  I  would  treat  you  better  than  I 
did  those  of  my  own  country  ?  "  ' 

The  destiny  of  America  was  to  establish  regulated 
Christian  liberty  for  the  American  Continent,  and 
interference  from  France  or  Great  Britain  would  not 
be  permitted.  After  showing  how  slavery  became 
profitable,  and  was  made  more  profitable  in  certain 
parts  of  the  South  by  the  breeding  of  slaves  for  the 
market,  and  that  the  domestic  slave-trade  carried  on 
between  Virginia  and  the  Gulf  States  was  unspeak- 
ably worse  than  the  African  slave-trade,  after  show- 
ing that  a  system  of  slavery  requires  intellectual  and 


'"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  467. 


312  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

moral  ignorance  in  the  slave  and  that  his  degrada- 
tion passes  over  to  his  work,  and  disastrously  affects 
all  labor,  even  that  performed  by  free  white  men, 
and  that  while  the  North  was  a  vast  hive  of  universal 
industry  in  which  idleness  had  become  as  disrepu- 
table as  labor  was  in  the  South — he  claimed  the  right 
of  demanding  from  the  workmen  of  Glasgow  that  they 
should  give  their  hearty  sympathies  to  those  who 
were  seeking  to  make  work  honorable  everywhere. 

"  For  a  grand  and  final  contest  between  the  sin  and 
guilt  of  labor-oppression  and  the  peace  and  glory  of 
free  labor,  He  set  apart  the  Western  Continent. 
That  the  trial  might  be  above  all  suspicion,  to  the 
right,  He  gave  the  meager  soil,  the  austere  climate, 
short  summers,  long  and  rigorous  winters;  to  the 
wrong  he  gave  fair  skies,  abundant  soils,  valleys  of 
the  tropics  teeming  with  almost  spontaneous  abun- 
dance. The  Christian  doctrine  of  work  has  made 
New  England  a  garden,  while  Virginia  is  a  wilder- 
ness. The  free  North  is  abundantly  rich;  the  South 
bankrupt!  Every  element  of  prosperous  society 
abounds  in  the  North  and  is  lacking  in  the  South. 
There  is  more  real  wealth  in  the  simple  little  State 
of  Massachusetts  than  in  any  ten  Southern  States." 

"  Oppression  is  as  accursed  in  the  field  as  it  is  upon 
the  throne.  It  is  as  odious  before  God  under  the 
slave-driver's  hat  as  under  the  prince's  crown  or 
priest's  mitre."  ' 

He  declared  that  the  South  meant  to  reopen  the 
African  slave-trade  for  the  purpose  of  cheapening 
negroes,  and  that  hence  every  freeman  in  Great  Brit- 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  473-474. 


THE  HEART  OF  BRUCE  RETURNS  TO  SCOTLAND.      313 

ain  who  favored  the  South  really  cast  in  his  influence 
for  the  opening  of  that  trade.  When  hisses  as  well 
as  cheers  followed  this  utterance,  he  said:  "When 
you  put  a  drunken  engineer  to  drive  a  train,  you  may 
not  mean  to  come  to  any  harm,  but  when  you  are  in 
that  train  you  cannot  help  yourselves.  It  is  just  the 
same  here — you  do  not  mean  the  slave-trade,  but  they 
do,  and  all  they  ask  of  you  is,  '  Be  blind.'  " 

Perhaps  no  part  of  his  speech  in  England  was  more 
effective  than  his  reply  to  the  question,  "  Why  did  the 
North  not  permit  the  South  to  go  since  their  econo- 
mies were  so  diametrically  opposed."  "  When  I  am 
asked,  '  Why  not  let  the  South  go?'  I  return  for  an 
answer  a  question,  '  Be  pleased  to  tell  me  what  part 
of  the  British  Islands  you  are  willing  to  let  go  from 
under  the  Crown,  when  its  inhabitants  secede  and 
set  up  for  independence  ? ' 

"  Secession  was  an  appeal  from  the  ballot  to  the 
bullet.  It  was  not  a  noble  minority  defying  usurpa- 
tion or  despotism  in  the  assertion  of  fundamental 
rights.  It  was  a  despotism  which,  when  put  to  shame 
by  the  will  of  a  free  people,  expressed  through  the 
ballot-box,  rushed  into  rebellion  as  a  means  of  per- 
petuating slavery." 

The  hisses  were  plentifully  sprinkled  through  parts 
of  this  Glasgow  address,  and  Mr.  Beecher  and  a  good 
many  of  his  auditors  got  into  a  perfect  tangle  of 
fierce  affirmations  and  denials  as  to  whether  the 
South  would  ever  come  back  into  the  Union. 

To  the  impudent  assertion  that  the  North  was  not 
sincere  in  this  conflict,  Mr.  Beecher  replied  in  a  burst 
of  noble  eloquence,  in  words  which  every  Northern  pa- 
triot who  remembers  those  days  of  sacrifice  and  awful 


314  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

agony  might  be  proud  to  wear  as  a  frontlet  between 
his  eyes.  "  They  have  come  not  like  the  Goths  and 
Huns  from  a  wandering  life  or  inclement  skies  to 
seek  fairer  skies  and  richer  soil,  but  from  homes  of 
luxury,  from  cultivated  farms,  from  busy  workshops, 
from  literary  labors,  from  the  bar,  the  pulpit  and  the 
exchange,  thronging  around  the  old  National  flag  that 
has  symbolized  liberty  to  mankind,  all  moved  by  a  pro- 
found love  of  country,  and  firmly,  fiercely  determined 
that  the  Motherland  shall  not  be  divided,  especially 
not  in  order  that  slavery  may  scoop  out  for  itself  a 
den  of  refuge  from  Northern  civilization  and  an  em- 
pire to  domineer  over  all  the  American  tropics.  It  is 
this  sublime  patriotism  which,  on  every  side,  I  hear 
stigmatized  as  a  mad  rush  of  National  ambition!  Has, 
then,  the  love  of  country  run  so  low  in  Great  Britain 
that  the  rising  of  a  Nation  to  defend  its  territory,  its 
Government,  its  flag,  and  all  the  institutions  over 
which  that  flag  has  waved,  is  a  theme  for  cold  aver- 
sion in  the  pulpit  and  sneers  in  the  pew  ?  Is  gener- 
osity dead  in  England  that  she  will  not  admire  in 
her  children  the  very  qualities  which  have  made  her 
children  proud  of  the  memories  of  their  common 
English  ancestors  ?"  l 

To  Earl  Russell's  argument,  in  replying  to  Mr. 
Sumner,  that  America  was  the  child  of  two  rebellions 
— the  Puritan  and  Revolutionary — Mr.  Beecher  said: 
"  Were  they  rebellions  against  liberty  to  more  des- 
potism, or  against  oppression  to  more  freedom  ? 
The  English  rebellion  and  the  American  rebellion 
were  both  toward  greater  freedom  for  all  classes  of 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p. 


THE  HEART  OF  BRUCE  RETURNS  TO  SCOTLAND.      315 

men.  This  rebellion  is  for  the  sake  of  holding  four 
million  slaves  to  greater  security  and  less  annoyance 
from  free  institutions." 

He  brought  things  home  with  a  resounding  crash 
to  the  industries  of  Glasgow  by  affirming,  amid 
applause  and  hisses,  that  every  man  who  struck  a 
blow  on  the  iron  that  is  put  into  those  ships  for  the 
South  is  striking  a  blow  and  forging  a  manacle  for 
the  hand  of  the  slave.  "  Every  free  laborer  in  old 
Glasgow  who  is  laboring  to  rear  up  iron  ships  for 
the  South  is  laboring  to  establish  on  sea  and  on  land 
the  doctrine  that  capital  has  a  right  to  own  labor." 

The  preacher  whose  whole  life  was  a  part  of  his 
religion;  who  made  every  English  platform  on  which 
he  spoke  for  America  a  pulpit  for  the  principles  of  that 
Gospel  which  he  loved,  presented  a  Day-of-Judgment 
view  of  the  question  before  the  God-fearing  men  of 
Glasgow  when  he  exclaimed :  "  O,  I  would  rather,  than 
all  the  crowns  and  thrones  of  earth,  have  the  sweet 
assuring  smile  of  Jesus  when  he  says:  '  Come,  wel- 
come, inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  the  least  of  these, 
ye  did  it  unto  Me.'  And  I  would  rather  face  the 
thunderbolt  than  stand  before  Him  when  he  says  on 
that  terrible  day,  '  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  unto 
the  least  of  these  My  little  ones,  ye  did  it  not  unto 
Me.'  You  strike  God  in  the  face  when  you  work  for 
slave-holders.  Your  money  so  got  and  quickly  earned 
will  be  badly  kept,  and  you  will  be  poor  before  you 
can  raise  your  children,  and  dying  you  will  leave  a 
memory  that  will  rise  against  you  on  the  Day  of 
Judgment.  By  the  solemnity  of  that  Judgment,  by 
the  sanctity  of  conscience,  by  the  love  that  you  bear 
to  humanity,  by  your  old  hereditary  love  of  liberty — 


316  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

in  the  name  of  God  and  of  mankind — I  charge  you  to 
come  out  from  among  them,  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  unclean  and  filthy  lucre  made  by  pandering 
to  slavery."  ' 

Towards  the  close  of  this  tremendous  speech  he 
showed  how  unnatural  it  was  for  America  to  seek 
alliance  with  Russia  rather  than  with  England. 
Monstrous  beyond  words  to  depict  would  be  a  war 
between  these  two  leaders  of  the  English-speaking 
nations.  It  was  a  duty  on  both  sides  to  avoid  every 
occasion  for  offense,  and  since  America  was  in 
anguish,  staggering  under  the  blows  of  a  great 
rebellion,  it  was  especially  incumbent  on  Great 
Britain  to  be  forbearing. 

He  said,  and  there  is  scarcely  anything  in  modern 
eloquence  more  impressive,  "  Remember — remem- 
ber— remember — we  are  carrying  out  our  dead.  Our 
sons,  our  brother's  sons,  our  sister's  children  are  in 
this  great  war  of  liberty  and  of  principle."  It  was 
brutal  for  a  landlord  to  send  out  a  warrant  to  distress 
a  widowed  mother  as  she  was  walking  to  the  grave 
of  her  first-born  son,  "Yet  it  was  in  the  hour  of  our 
mortal  anguish  that,  when  by  an  unauthorized  act, 
one  of  the  captains  of  our  navy  seized  a  British 
ship,  for  which  our  Government  instantly  offered  all 
reparation,  a  British  army  was  hurried  to  Canada. 
I  do  not  undertake  to  teach  the  law  that  governs  the 
question;  but  this  I  do  undertake  to  say,  and  I  will 
carry  every  generous  man  in  this  audience  with  me, 
when  I  affirm  that  if  between  America,  bent  double 
with    the    anguish    of    this   bloody    war,    and    Great 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  492. 


THE  HEART  OF  BRUCE  RETURNS  TO  SCOTLAND.     317 

Britain,  who  sits  at  peace,  there  is  to  be  forbearance 
on  either  side,  it  should  be  on  your  side." 

Amid  great  and  prolonged  cheering,  a  resolution  of 
thanks  for  his  admirable  and  eloquent  address  was 
passed  by  the  meeting. 

The  next  evening,  October  14th,  Mr.  Beecher  spoke 
in  Edinburgh.  With  great  difficulty  he  reached  the 
platform.  The  people  were  so  tightly  wedged  in  that 
it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be  hoisted  over  their 
heads  and  passed  on  by  friendly  hands  up  to  the 
gallery,  and  down  over  the  front  of  the  gallery  to  the 
platform.  Except  at  the  beginning  of  the  meeting 
the  disturbances  were  comparatively  slight,  and  the 
resolution  protesting  against  slavery  and  encouraging 
the  cause  of  Emancipation  in  America  which  was 
introduced,  after  what  Dr.  Alexander  called  Mr. 
Beecher's  magnificent  oration,  was  carried  amid  great 
cheering.  At  the  start  he  was  hissed  as  well  as 
applauded.  Deprecating  somewhat  the  earnest  plead- 
ings of  the  Chairman  that  he  be  given  a  hearing,  he 
stated  that  he  had  never  thought  it  necessary  to  ask 
an  audience  in  the  East  or  in  the  West  to  listen  to 
him,  "  Not  even  in  America,  the  country,  as  we  have 
lately  been  informed,  of  mobs." 

In  the  midst  of  his  recital  of  the  history  of  the  dis- 
pute between  the  North  and  the  South,  wherein  he 
showed  how  the  Southern  States,  finally  wedded  to 
slavery,  had  for  fifty  years  taken  possession  of  the 
Government,  he  turned  his  remarks  so  as  to  introduce 
a  suspicious  compliment  to  Great  Britain.  "  All 
the  filibustering  and  all  the  intimidations  of  Foreign 
Powers,  all  the  so-called  snubbing  of  Eastern  Powers, 
happened  during  the  period  when  the  policy  of  the 


318  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

country  was  controlled  by  the  South.  May  I  be  per- 
mitted to  look  on  it  as  a  mark  of  victorious  Chris- 
tianity that  England  now  loves  her  worst  enemy,  and 
is  sitting  with  arms  of  sympathy  around  her  neck?" 
But  the  compliment  was  followed  by  loud  cheers. 

With  regard  to  Southern  independence  for  which,  as 
he  agreed  with  Earl  Russell  in  saying,  the  South  was 
contending,  he  remarked:  "  What,  then,  is  Southern 
independence?  It  is  the  meteor  around  the  dark 
body  of  slavery.  King  Bomba  of  Naples  wanted  to 
be  independent,  and  his  idea  of  independence  was 
that  he  should  be  let  alone  whilst  he  was  oppressing 
his  subjects.  This  very  idea  of  independence  has 
been  the  same  since  the  days  when  Nimrod  hunted 
men:  this  is  the  only  independence  the  South  is  fight- 
ing for."  ' 

Toward  the  close  of  his  speecn  he  made  a  remark 
concerning  Abraham  Lincoln's  policy  and  character 
which  deserves  to  be  remembered.  Speaking  of  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  he  said:  "The  President 
was  very  loath  to  take  the  steps  he  did;  but,  though 
slow,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  sure.  A  thousand  men 
could  not  make  him  plant  his  foot  before  he  was 
ready,  ten  thousand  could  not  move  it  after  he  had 
put  it  down." 

Mr.  Beecher's  estimate  of  the  importance  of  the 
struggle  in  which  the  North  was  engaged  may  be  seen 
from  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  his  sister,  Mrs.  Stowe. 
"This  contest  is  nothing  more  or  less  then  a  conflict 
between  democratic  and  aristocratic  institutions,  in 
which    success   to  one  must  be  defeat  to  the  other. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  511. 


THE  HEART  OF  BRUCE  RETURNS  TO  SCOTLAND.     319 

The  aristocratic  party  in  England  see  this  plainly- 
enough  and  I  do  not  propose  to  endeavor  to  pull  the 
wool  over  their  eyes.  I  do  not  expect  sympathy  from 
them.  No  order  yet  ever  had  any  sympathy  with 
what  must  prove  their  own  downfall.  We  have  got 
to  settle  this  question  by  our  armies  and  the  opinions 
of  mankind  will  follow."  '  Therefore  it  was  that  Mr. 
Beecher's  whole  heart  and  strength  went  into  this 
great  contest  which  he  was  waging  with  public  opin- 
ion in  Great  Britain.  All  that  strength  was  soon  to 
bear  a  supreme  test  and  "  the  sinews  of  a  Titan's 
heart "  were  to  be  strained  to  the  uttermost. 


1  "  Men  of  Our  Times,"  p.  557. 


CHAPTER    XXXI. 

"I    HAVE    FOUGHT    WITH    BEASTS   AT    EPHESUS." 

Perhaps  the  climax  of  Mr.  Beecher's  contest  was 
his  address  at  Liverpool  on  the  16th  of  October. 
Public  excitement  was  intense,  immense  efforts  were 
put  forth  to  break  down  the  speaker.  Blood-red 
placards,  intended  to  prejudice  the  people,  lined  the 
Liverpool  streets.  The  Philharmonic  Hall  was 
thronged  in  every  part. 

When  his  name  was  spoken  by  the  Chairman  it  was 
hissed,  and  when  he  stepped  forward  to  speak  he  was 
received  with  groans  as  well  as  cheers.  For  some 
time  he  could  not  get  beyond,  "  Ladies  and  Gentle- 
men." The  Chairman  threatened  to  call  the  police. 
In  his  second  sentence  Mr.  Beecher  brought  in  a  de- 
nunciation of  African  slavery  with  elicited  cheers. 
"  For  some  time  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  cele- 
brated Abolitionist  would  be  allowed  to  speak:  but 
those  who  sat  near  the  reverend  gentleman,  and  ob- 
served his  firmly  compressed  lips  and  imperturbable 
demeanor  saw  at  once  that  it  would  require  some- 
thing more  than  noise  and  spasmodic  hisses  to  cause 
Mr.  Beecher  to  lose  heart." 

This  report  from  one  of  the  Liverpool  papers  will 
indicate  how  Mr.  Beecher  impressed  the  intelligent 
English  spectator.  Perhaps  a  single  half  page  from 
this  Liverpool  speech  will  give  a  better  impression  of 
the  tumultuous  scene  than  any  description. 


MI  HAVE  FOUGHT  WITH  BEASTS  AT  EPHESUS."      32I 

"  And  when  in  Manchester  I  saw  these  huge  placards 
'Who  is  Henry  Ward  Beecher?'  [laughter,  cries  of 
"Quite  right,"  and  applause]  and  when  in  Liverpool 
I  was  told  that  there  were  those  blood-red  placards, 
purporting  to  say  what  Henry  Ward  Beecher  had 
said,  and  calling  upon  Englishmen  to  suppress  free 
speech,  I  tell  you  what  I  thought:  I  thought  simply 
this,  I  am  glad  of  it.  [Laughter.]  Why  ?  Because  if 
they  had  felt  perfectly  secure  that  you  are  the  minions 
of  the  South  and  the  slaves  of  slavery,  they  would 
have  been  perfectly  still  [applause  and  uproar].  And, 
therefore,  when  I  saw  so  much  nervous  apprehension 
that  if  I  were  permitted  to  speak  [hisses  and  applause], 
— when  I  found  that  they  were  afraid  to  have  me  speak 
[hisses  and  laughter,  and  "  No,"  "  No"],  when  I  found 
that  they  considered  my  speaking  damaging  to  their 
cause  [applause],  when  I  found  that  they  appealed 
from  facts  and  reasonings  to  mob  law  [applause  and 
uproar]  I  said:  No  man  need  tell  me  what  the  heart 
and  secret  counsel  of  these  men  are.  They  tremble 
and  are  afraid."1  [Applause,  laughter,  hisses,  and 
"  No,"  "  No,"  and  a  voice  "  New  York  mob."] 

It  was  fortunate  for  Mr.  Beecher,  who  had  to  hurl 
his  brief  sentences  between  the  short  pauses  of  such 
a  thunder-storm,  that,  as  Dr.  Holmes  has  said,  "  His 
ordinary  speaking  is  pointed,  staccatoed,  as  is  that  of 
most  successful  extemporaneous  speakers;  he  is  short- 
gaited;  the  movement  of  his  thoughts  is  that  of  a 
chopping  sea,  rather  than  the  long,  rolling,  rhythmical 
wave-procession  of  phrase-balancing  rhetoricans." 

Mr.  Beecher's  appeal  to  the  manly  tone  and  temper 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  517. 
31 


322  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  Englishmen,  to  their  love  of  fair  play,  produced  a 
temporary  good  effect.  He  invited  his  friends  to  sit 
still  and  keep  still.  "  I  and  my  friends,  the  Secessionists, 
will  make  all  the  noise."  And  thus  on  that  stormy 
night  he  urged  the  need  of  liberty,  if  labor,  manufac- 
tures, and  commerce  were  to  be  prosperous.  He  gave 
more  than  an  inkling  of  his  incipient  free-trade 
theories,  by  speaking  against  a  burdensome  tariff:  he 
showed  the  need  of  prosperity  and  education  among 
the  populations  to  which  Liverpool  sold  her  goods. 
He  proved  that  "  that  nation  is  the  best  customer 
that  is  freest,  because  freedom  works  prosperity, 
industry,  and  wealth/'  and  that,  aside  from  moral 
considerations,  Great  Britain  had  a  large,  direct 
pecuniary  and  commercial  interest  in  the  liberty, 
civilization,  and  wealth  of  every  people  and  every 
nation  of  the  globe. 

"  To  evangelize  has  more  than  a  moral  and  relig- 
ious import — it  comes  back  to  temporal  relations. 
Wherever  a  nation  that  is  crushed,  cramped,  de- 
graded under  despotism  is  struggling  to  be  free,  you, 
Leeds,  Sheffield,  Manchester,  Paisley,  all  have  an 
interest  that  that  nation  should  be  free."  ' 

England's  great  thought  was  consumers.  There 
are  no  more  continents  to  be  discovered.  Great 
Britain's  policy  should  be  to  improve  the  old  markets, 
civilizing  the  world  in  order  to  get  a  better  class  of 
purchasers. 

"  If  you  were  to  press  Italy  down  again  under  the 
feet  of  despotism,  Italy,  discouraged,  could  draw  but 
very  few  supplies  from   you.     But  give  her  liberty, 


1  "  Patrrotic  Addresses,"  p.  521. 


I  HAVE  FOUGHT  WITH  BEASTS  AT  EPHESUS.  323 

kindle  schools  throughout  her  valleys,  spur  her  indus- 
try, make  treaties  with  her  by  which  she  can  exchange 
her  wine,  her  oil,  and  her  silk  for  your  manufactured 
goods;  and  for  every  effort  you  make  in  that  direc- 
tion there  will  come  back  profit  to  you  by  increased 
traffic  with  her."  '     [Loud  applause.] 

Following  the  words,  "If  the  South  should  be 
rendered  independent,"  there  came  a  perfect  war  of 
cheering  and  hisses;  half  the  audience  rose  to  their 
feet,  shouting  and  making  a  perfect  bedlam.  Mr. 
Beecher  remained  quiet  and  silent  until  peace  was 
restored,  and  then  said:  "Well,  you  have  had  your 
turn,  now  let  me  have  mine  again.  [Loud  applause 
and  laughter.]  It  is  a  little  inconvenient  to  talk 
against  the  wind,  but,  after  all,  if  you  will  just  keep 
good  natured,  I  am  not  going  to  lose  my  temper;  will 
you  watch  yours  ?  Besides  all  that,  it  rests  me,  and 
gives  me  a  chance,  you  know,  to  get  my  breath. 
[Applause  and  hisses.]  And  I  think  that  the  bark  of 
those  men  is  worse  than  their  bite.  They  do  not 
mean  any  harm;  they  do  not  know  any  better."* 
[Loud  laughter,  applause,  and  continued  uproar.] 

Words  sometimes  have  been  called  half  battles. 
Mr.  Beecher  spoke  at  Liverpool  wit  all  the  incidents 
of  a  battlefield,  with  charges  and  counter-charges, 
incessant  shouting,  and  constant  interruptions  on  the 
one  side,  while  the  orator's  business  was  to  fire  his 
pistol-shots  of  sentences  in  every  lull.  Occasionally 
there  would  be  a  rifle-shot  projected  with  all  his  vocal 
power,  and  once  in  a  while  there  came  a  cannon-shot 
with  a  long  reverberating  roar. 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  523.    2 '   Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  524, 


324  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

There  is  probably  no  more  entertaining  passage  at 
arms  on  the  field  of  debate  than  Mr.  Beecher's  fight  with 
the  Liverpool  mob.  It  was  give  and  take,  parry  and 
thrust,  shot  and  counter-shot,  from  first  to  last.  Said 
a  Liverpool  paper:  "  The  interruptions  were  incess- 
ant, while  a  scene  prevailed  the  equal  of  which  has 
seldom  been  witnessed  in  Liverpool.  "  Three  cheers 
for  Jeff  Davis,"  was  a  proposal  which  once  more  met 
with  a  hearty  response  from  a  portion  of  the  audience; 
and,  as  the  admirers  of  the  Confederate  President 
were  loath  to  cease  their  approval,  Mr.  Beecher  com- 
posedly sat  down  on  the  low  parapet  of  the  platform 
and  waited  a  calm,  at  the  same  time  apologizing  to 
the  reporters  for  causing  them  to  be  so  long  detained. 
At  one  time,  about  a  score  of  persons  were  speaking 
in  various  parts  of  the  hall,  and  Mr.  Beecher,  as  a 
last  resource,  stated  that  if  the  meeting  would  not 
hear  him,  he  would  address  the  reporters."  s 

After  he  had  shown  what  poor  customers  the  slaves 
and  degraded  whites  of  the  South  then  were,  and 
must  remain,  and  how  little  Liverpool  could  sell  such 
a  population,  a  population  that  required  none  of  her 
carpets  and  linens  and  machines  and  looking-glasses 
and  pictures  and  engravings,  a  voice  cried  out,  "We 
will  sell  them  ships  ";  and  then  the  reply  came,  "  You 
may  sell  ships  to  a  few,  but  what  ships  can  you  sell 
to  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  poor  whites  and 
blacks?  [Applause.]  A  little  bagging,  a  little  linsey 
woolsey,  a  few  whips  and  manacles,  are  all  that  you 
can  sell  for  the  slave.  [Great  applause  and  uproar.] 
This  very  day  in  the  slave  States  of  America  there 


1  "Biography,"  p.  425. 


"I  HAVE  FOUGHT  WITH  BEASTS  AT  EPHESUS.         325 

are  eight  millions  out  of  twelve  millions  that  are  not, 
and  cannot,  be  your  customers  from  the  very  laws  of 
trade."  1 

To  one  insulting  interruption,  when  a  voice  cried 
out,  "  Go  on  with  your  subject;  we  know  about  Eng- 
land," he  replied:  "Excuse  me,  sir,  I  am  the  speaker, 
not  you,  and  it  is  for  me  to  determine  what  to  say." 
[Hear,  Hear.]  Do  you  suppose  that  I  am  going  to 
speak  about  America  except  to  convince  Englishmen  ? 
I  am  here  to  talk  to  you  for  the  sake  of  ultimately 
carrying  you  with  me  in  judgment  and  in  thinking. 
[Oh!  Oh!]  However,  as  to  this  logic  of  cat-calls, 
it  is  slavery  logic;  I  am  used  to  it."  *  [Applause and 
cheers.] 

In  writing  to  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  in  January,  1864, 
on  Mr.  Beecher's  embassy  to  England,  Dr.  Holmes 
described  the  Chokers,  Hustlers,  Burglars,  with  their 
jimmies  in  their  pockets,  fighting  robbers  with  brass 
knuckles,  "  the  whole  set  in  a  vast  thief-constituency, 
thick  as  rats  in  sewers,"  as  "the  disputants  whom 
the  emissaries  of  the  slave-power  called  upon  to 
refute  the  arguments  of  the  Brooklyn  clergyman." 

As  Mr.  Beecher  finished  his  remarks  on  the  com- 
mercial and  manufacturing  advantages  accruing  to 
Great  Britain  through  emancipation  in  America,  he 
cried  out:  i(  It  is  said  that  the  South  is  fighting  for 
just  that  independence  of  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing. [Hear,  Hear.]  But  the  South  is  divided  on 
that  subject.  [No,  No.]  There  are  twelve  millions 
in  the  South.     Four  millions  of  them   are  asking  for 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  526-527. 
*  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  527. 


326  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER 

their  liberty.  [No,  No,  hisses,  Yes,  applause  and  in- 
terruptions.] Four  millions  of  them  are  asking  for 
their  liberty.  [Continued  interruptions  and  renewed 
applause.]  Eight  millions  are  banded  together  to 
prevent  it.  [No,  No,  hisses,  and  applause.]  That  is 
what  they  ask  the  world  to  recognize  as  a  strike  for 
independence.  [Hear,  Hear,  and  laughter.]  Eight 
million  white  men  fighting  to  prevent  the  liberty  of 
four  million  black  men,  challenging  the  world.  [Up- 
roar, hisses,  applause,  and  continued  interruptions.] 
You  cannot  get  over  the  fact;  there  it  is,  like  iron, 
you  cannot  stir  it.  [Uproar.]  They  went  out  of  the 
Union  because  slave-property  was  not  recognized  in 
it."  • 

To  the  remark  that  England  could  not  help  sym- 
pathizing with  the  gallant  people  who  were  the 
weaker  party  in  the  American  struggle,  he  said: 
"  Nothing  could  be  more  generous,  when  a  weak 
party  stands  for  its  own  legitimate  rights  against  im- 
perious pride  and  power  than  to  sympathize  with  the 
weak;  but  who  ever  yet  sympathized  with  a  weak 
thief  because  three  constables  had  got  hold  of  him  ? 
.  .  .  I  could  wish  so  much  bravery  had  had  a  bet- 
ter cause, and  that  so  much  self-denial  had  been  less  de- 
luded; that  that  poisonous  and  venomous  doctrine  of 
State  sovereignty  might  have  been  kept  aloof;  that 
so  many  gallant  spirits,  such  as  Stonewall  Jackson, 
might  still  have  lived.  [Great  applause  and  loud 
cheers,  again  and  again  renewed.]  The  force  of 
these  facts,  historical  and  incontrovertible,  cannot  be 
broken  except  through  diverting  attention  by  an  at- 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  529,  530. 


"I  HAVE  FOUGHT  WITH  BEASTS  AT  EPHESUS.  327 

tack  on  the  North.  It  is  stated  that  the  North  is 
fighting  for  the  Union,  and  not  for  Emancipation. 
The  North  is  fighting  for  Union,  for  that  insures 
Emancipation."  ! 

And  so  the  fight  went  on.  The  opposition  did  not 
wear  out,  the  uproar,  interruptions,  and  hubbub,  were 
indescribable.  It  was  often  but  a  short  sentence  at  a 
time  that  he  could  interject  into  the  melee.  Again 
and  again  the  Chairman  came  to  his  help.  At  one 
time  an  individual  was  lifted  up  and  carried  from  the 
room  amid  cheering  and  hisses.  When  the  mob 
endeavored  to  prevent  his  reading  something  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  said,  he  cried  out:  "Well,  you  can  hear 
it  or  not;  it  will  be  printed  whether  you  hear  it  or 
hear  it  not."     Then  came  loud  cries  of  "  Read,  read." 

When,  after  more  than  two  hours  of  desperate 
fighting  Mr.  Beecher  resumed  his  seat,  it  was  the 
signal  for  an  outburst  of  every  conceivable  expression 
of  approval  and  disapproval.  The  vote  of  thanks, 
however,  was  carried  with  loud  and  long  cheering, 
the  Chairman  declaring  that  he  expected  that  the 
vote  would  be  joined  in  by  all  the  representatives  of 
American  slave-holders  present,  from  the  fact  that 
they  had  had  more  instruction  that  night  than  they 
had  apparently  received  during  all  the  previous  part 
of  their  lives. 

Unquestionably  this  was  one  of  the  greatest  orator- 
ical achievements  on  record.  The  Rev.  Dr.  A.  H. 
Bradford,  recalls  a  remark  made  by  the  famous 
ex-pastor  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  of  New  York 
City,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Wm.  M.  Taylor,  who,  after  describ- 


"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  532,  533. 


328  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

ing  Mr.  Beecher's  speeches  in  England  during  the 
war,  and  of  this  great  tussle  which  he  had  with  the 
mob,  said,  with  his  peculiar  emphasis,  "  I  tell  you  I 
believe  there  has  not  been  such  eloquence  in  the  world 
since  Demosthenes."  ' 

Liverpool  was  doubtless  the  strategic  point  in  Mr. 
Beecher's  English  campaign.  His  enemies  felt  this, 
and  his  life  was  seriously  threatened,  not  only  before 
his  entrance  into  the  hall,  but  afterwards.  He  reports 
that  there  were  men  in  the  galleries  and  boxes  who 
came  armed,  and  that  some  of  the  bold  men,  who 
were  friends  of  the  North,  went  up  in  to  those  boxes, 
and  drawing  their  bowie-knives  and  pistols,  said  to 
these  young  bloods:  "The  first  man  that  fires  here 
will  rue  it."  He  reports  that  nearly  all  the  members 
of  the  Congregational  Association  of  England  and 
Wales  were  present  on  the  platform  at  this  memora- 
ble meeting,  and  doubtless  Mr.  Beecher's  fame  as  an 
orator  was  enhanced  by  the  reports  of  these  clerical 
auditors. 

It  had  taken  him  an  hour  and  a  half  to  get  partial 
control  of  the  meeting,  and  nearly  three  hours'  use  of 
his  voice,  at  its  utmost  strength,  to  get  through  with 
his  speech.  "  I  sometimes  felt  like  a  shipmaster  at- 
tempting to  preach  on  board  of  a  ship,  through 
a  speaking  trumpet,  with  a  tornado  on  the  sea,  and 
mutiny  among  the  men.  "  a 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Campbell,  who  had  heard  some  of  the 
best  speeches  of  Daniel  O'Connell,  believed  that  none 
of  them  was  equal  to  Mr.  Beecher's  effort  at  the 
memorable  Liverpool  meeting.     Doubtless  his  effec- 


1  "  Life,"  p.  352.     2  "  Life,"  p.  177. 


"I  HAVE  FOUGHT  WITH  BEASTS  AT  EPHESUS.  329 

tiveness  came  in  part  from  the  hostility  of  so  large 
a  portion  of  his  audience.  Dr.  Holmes  thought  that 
since  Mr.  Beecher's  quick  spirit  needed  to  be  roused 
by  a  few  sharp  questions,  "he  could  almost  afford  to 
carry  with  him  his  picadores  to  sting  him  with  sar- 
casms." 

Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs  has  said  :  "  When  Mr.  Beecher  was 
in  England  they  made  volcanoes  around  him  on  no 
small  scale  at  Liverpool,  at  Manchester,  and  other 
places.  But  that  fluent  thought  within,  and  that  fluent 
eloquence  of  the  lips,  put  out  the  volcanoes;  or  if  they 
did  not  put  them  out,  they  made  the  fire  shoot  the 
other  way,  till  the  ground  became  too  hot  for  the 
English  Government  to  stand  on  if  it  would  permit 
its  evident  sympathy  for  the  Southern  Confederacy 
to  be  formulated  into  law."  x 


1  "  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  81. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

THE   AMERICAN    DEMOSTHENES    TRIUMPHS. 

If  the  climax  of  Mr.  Beecher's  struggle  in  England 
was  reached  on  the  16th  of  October  in  the  Philhar- 
monic Hall  in  Liverpool,  the  climax  of  his  triumph 
occurred  in  Exeter  Hall,  London,  on  the  20th  of 
October,  where,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Emanci- 
pation Society  and  London  Committee  of  Corre- 
spondence on  American  Affairs,  he  addressed  a  meet- 
ing which  densely  packed  that  famous  Hall,  and 
where  he  was  welcomed  with  long  and  reiterated 
cheers. 

Mr.  Benjamin  Scott,  the  Chamberlain  of  the  City  of 
London,  was  the  Chairman  of  this  great  meeting,  and 
when  in  1886  Mr.  Beecher  spoke  in  Exeter  Hall  again, 
Mr.  Scott,  who  was  still  Chamberlain  of  the  city,  was 
asked  by  Mr.  Beecher  to  occupy  once  more  the  same 
position.  In  his  address,  in  1863,  he  said  of  Mr. 
Beecher:  "  I  honor  and  respect  him  for  his  manliness; 
he  is  every  inch  a  man;  he  is  a  standard  by  which 
humanity  may  well  measure  itself." 

Mr.  Beecher  by  this  time  was  famous.  His  four 
speeches,  which  had  been  reported  in  all  the  leading 
journals  of  the  United  Kingdom,  had  made  him  the 
talk  of  the  clubs.  As  one  indication,  perhaps  charac- 
teristically English,  of  his  added  fame,  he  mentions 


THE    AMERICAN    DEMOSTHENES    TRIUMPHS.  331 

the  fact  that  when  he  first  went  to  London  and 
stopped  at  a  certain  inn,  he  was  put  into  a  little  bed- 
room right  under  the  rafters;  when  he  returned  from 
the  Continent  he  had  been  somewhat  talked  about 
and  they  put  him  in  a  third  story  front-room,  but  on 
his  third  visit  he  was  received  by  the  landlord  and 
servants  in  white  aprons,  and  was  bowed  in  and  put 
in  the  second  story  with  "  a  front  parlor  and  bedroom 
and  everything  beautiful." 

The  tremendous  strain  which  had  been  put  upon 
his  voice,  especially  at  Liverpool,  had  been  such  that 
when  he  went  to  bed  the  night  before  his  London 
address  he  was  too  hoarse  to  be  heard  aloud.  He 
said  resignedly:  "  Lord,  Thou  knowest  this,  let  it  be 
as  Thou  wilt."  At  the  farewell  breakfast  given  to  him 
in  London,  three  days  later,  he  describes  this  painful 
experience.  "  I  felt  all  day  on  Monday  that  I  was 
come  to  London  to  speak  to  a  public  audience,  but 
my  voice  was  gone;  and  I  felt  as  though  about  to 
be  made  a  derision  to  my  enemies.  ...  I  asked 
God  to  restore  me  my  voice  as  a  child  would  ask  its 
father  to  grant  it  a  favor.  But  I  hoped  that  God  would 
grant  me  His  grace  to  enable  me,  if  it  were  necessary 
for  the  cause  that  I  should  be  put  to  open  shame, 
to  stand  up  as  a  fool  before  the  audience.  When  I 
got  up  on  Tuesday  morning,  I  spoke  to  myself  to  try 
whether  I  could  speak,  and  my  voice  was  quite  clear." 

As  in  Edinburgh.  Mr.  Beecher  had  great  difficulty 
in  entering  the  hall.  He  was  detained  in  the  crowd 
on  the  street  for  some  time,  but  at  last  was  borne 
within  on  the  shoulders  of  policemen.  "When  I  got 
around  to  the  back  door,  I  felt  a  woman  throw  her 
arms  around  me — I  saw  that  they  were  the  arms  of  a 


$$2  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

woman,  and  that  she  had  me  in  her  arms — and  when 
I  went  through  the  door,  she  got  through,  too,  and  on 
turning  around,  I  found  that  it  was  one  of  the  mem- 
bers of  my  church.  She  had  married  and  gone  to 
London,  and  she  was  determined  to  hear  that  speech, 
and  so  took  this  way  to  accomplish  an  apparently 
impossible  task.  She  grasped  and  held  me  until  I 
got  her  in.  I  suppose  that  is  the  way  a  great  many 
sinners  will  get  into  Heaven  finally."  ' 

He  began  his  great  London  address,  which  Mr. 
Justin  McCarthy,  himself  an  admirable  judge  of 
oratory,  has  said  proved  Mr.  Beecher  to  be  "  the 
most  dexterous  and  powerful  platform  speaker  "  he 
had  ever  heard,  by  disclaiming  a  large  part  of  the 
praise  bestowed  upon  him  so  lavishly  by  the  Cham- 
berlain of  the  city.  He  had  not  been  one  of  the 
pioneers  of  the  anti-slavery  movement  in  America. 
That  honor  belonged  to  men  like  Garrison,  Phillips, 
the  Tappans,  Josiah  Leavitt,  Gerritt  Smith,  and 
others.  He  said:  "I  cannot  permit,  in  this  fair 
country,  the  honors  to  be  put  upon  me  and  wrested 
from  those  men  who  deserve  them  far  more  than  I  do. 
All  I  can  say  is  this,  that  when  I  began  my  public  life,  I 
fell  into  the  ranks  under  appropriate  captains,  and 
fought  as  well  as  I  knew  how,  in  the  ranks  or  in 
command." 

After  reviewing  the  line  of  his  argument  at  Man- 
chester, Glasgow,  Edinburgh,  and  Liverpool,  and 
after  summing  up  his  efforts  by  saying  that  he 
had  endeavored  "to  enlist  against  this  flagitious 
wickedness,  and    the    great   civil  war  which   it   has 

1  "  Life,"  p.  179. 


THE    AMERICAN    DEMOSTHENES    TRIUMPHS.  333 

kindled,  the  judgment,  conscience,  and  interests  of 
the  British  people,"  he  added:  "  I  have  tried  to  show 
that  sympathy  for  the  South,  however  covered  by 
excuses  or  softened  by  sophistry,  is  simply  sympa- 
thy with  an  audacious  attempt  to  build  up  a  slave 
empire,  pure  and  simple." 

Having  spoken  to  the  English  from  an  English 
point  of  view,  he  would  ask  them  to  look  at  this 
struggle  from  an  American  point  of  view,  and  to  con- 
sider its  moral  aspects.  The  opposition  which  had 
been  exasperated  by  his  great  victory  in  other  cities, 
for  his  strokes  had  "  invariably  drawn  blood  from  the 
hides  of  the  Confederate  sympathizers,"  had  organ- 
ized an  effort  to  defeat  the  purposes  of  the  London 
meeting.  Lord  Russell  had  recently  declared  that 
the  moral  sympathies  of  the  English  people  were 
adverse  to  the  South,  and  immense  efforts  were  made 
in  London  to  disprove  this  assertion.  But  the  shil- 
ling admission-fee  to  Exeter  Hall  had  eliminated 
many  of  the  Southern  sympathizers,  although  parts 
of  the  building  were  occupied  by  men  who  meant 
mischief. 

Early  in  the  meeting  a  hiss  was  started,  but  the 
hostile  demonstration  was  not  prolonged.  Referring 
to  the  weakness  of  his  voice,  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "I 
expect  to  be  hoarse,  and  I  am  willing  to  be  hoarse,  if 
I  can  in  any  way  assist  to  bring  the  mother  and 
daughter  heart  to  heart  and  hand  to  hand  together." 
Later,  the  Southern  sympathizers  tried  by  their  hisses 
and  tumult  to  drown  the  cheers,  but  Mr.  Beecher 
quietly  and  smilingly  said:  "  Friends,  I  thank  you 
for  these  interruptions;  it  gives  me  a  chance  to  rest." 
This  put  an  end  to  the  hisses  for  the  evening. 


334  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

An  eye-witness  of  the  memorable  scene  says:  "  One 
of  the  editors  of  the  Star,  himself  a  distinguished 
speaker,  and  thoroughly  acquainted  with  English 
audiences,  who  sat  near  to  me,  whispered  in  my  ear: 
'  There  are  a  great  many  here  who  do  not  cheer; 
there  is  a  strong  chance  of  a  row  yet,  and  the  meeting 
is  in  just  such  a  condition  that  the  result  will  depend 
on  the  power  and  equanimity  of  the  speaker.'  Then 
I  replied:  '  You  need  not  fear.'  If  Mr.  Beecher  had 
heard  our  brief  whispers,  he  could  not  have  more 
distinctly  applied  the  remark  of  the  editor.  At  that 
moment,  although  he  had  been  interesting  all  along, 
he  suddenly  stepped  one  side  from  the  desk  upon 
which  his  notes  lay,  and  his  face  gleamed  like  a 
sword  leaping  from  a  scabbard;  no  more  hisses,  no 
more  cheers  now  for  half  an  hour;  the  audience  is 
magnetized — breathless." l 

Mr.  Beecher  has  reported  that  he  had  less  trouble 
in  London  than  anywhere  else,  and  that,  the  battle 
having  been  already  fought,  he  was  able  to  give  his 
London  speech  a  more  religious  tone  than  had  been 
previously  possible  in  England. 

In  corroboration  of  his  claim  that  the  South  had 
been  protected  in  her  rights  by  the  North,  and  that 
the  Government  had  not  been  oppressive  to  Southern 
interests,  he  quoted  very  effectively  from  the  famous 
speech  of  Vice-President  Stephens,  who  said  that  the 
South  had  had  a  majority  of  the  Presidents  and  of 
the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court.  With  much 
lucidity  he  explained  how  the  National  Government 
had  been  unable  to  interfere  directly  with  slavery  in 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  435. 


THE   AMERICAN   DEMOSTHENES    TRIUMPHS.  335 

the  States,  but,  since  slavery  had  lifted  itself  up  out 
of  its  State  humility,  to  strike  the  Nation's  life,  it 
became  a  National  enemy  and  was  no  longer  exempt 
from  Governmental  attack.  Perhaps  the  destructive 
character  of  the  doctrine  of  secession  was  never  more 
vividly  shown  than  in  his  description  of  it  as  "  a  huge 
revolving  millstone  that  grinds  the  National  life  to 
powder;  it  is  anarchy  in  velvet  and  National  destruc- 
tion clothed  in  soft  phrases  and  periphrastic  expres- 
sions. But  we  have  fought  with  that  devil,  Slavery, 
and  understand  him  better  than  you  do.  No  people 
with  patriotism  and  honor  will  give  up  territory 
without  a  struggle  for  it."' 

Substituting  the  County  of  Kent  for  the  State  of 
South  Carolina,  and  asking  how  English  gentlemen 
would  feel  if  the  County  of  Kent  should  try  the  experi- 
ment which  South  Carolina  was  making,  he  injected 
into  the  English  mind  a  clear  conception  of  the  Ameri- 
can cause.  Again,  he  said,  that "  the  Mississippi,  which 
is  our  Southern  door  and  hall  to  come  in  and  go  out, 
runs  right  through  the  territory  which  they  have  tried 
to  rend  from  us.  The  South  magnanimously  offered 
to  let  us  use  it  ;  but  what  would  you  say  if,  on  going 
home,  you  found  a  squad  of  gypsies  seated  in  your 
hall,  who  refused  to  be  ejected,  saying:  'But  look 
here,  we  will  let  you  go  in  and  out  on  equitable  and 
easy  terms.'  " 2 

Referring  to  the  cry  heard  all  over  England,  "  Let 
slaver}'  go,"  he  told  most  effectively  the  story  of  how 
Sir  Fowell  Buxton  seized  a  mad  dog  by  the  neck  and 
collar  and  held    him    until   help   could  be  got.     "  If 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  561.    8 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  56a. 


336  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

there  had  been  Englishmen  there  of  the  stripe  of 
The  Times,  they  would  have  said  to  Fowell  Buxton, 
'  Let  him  go  '  ;  but  is  there  one  here  who  does  not 
feel  the  moral  nobleness  of  that  man,  who,  rather 
than  let  the  mad  animal  go  down  the  street  biting 
children,  and  women,  and  men,  risked  his  life  and 
prevented  the  dog  from  doing  evil  ?  Shall  we  allow 
this  hell-hound  of  slavery,  mad,  mad  as  it  is,  to  go 
biting  millions  in  the  future  ?  We  will  peril  life  and 
limb  and  all  we  have  first.  These  truths  are  not 
exaggerated — they  are  diminished  rather  than  mag- 
nified in  my  statement  ;  and  you  cannot  tell  how 
powerfully  they  are  influencing  us  unless  you  were 
standing  in  our  midst  in  America  ;  you  cannot  under- 
stand how  firm  that  National  feeling  is  which  God 
has  bred  in  the  North  on  this  subject.  It  is  deeper 
than  the  sea,  it  is  firmer  than  the  hills,  it  is  as  serene 
as  the  sky  over  our  heads  where  God  dwells."  ' 

After  nobly  expressing  the  American  belief  that  by 
this  awful  and  yet  glorious  struggle,  the  North  was 
helping  the  cause  of  the  common  people  the  world 
over,  and  that  if  the  North  failed  to  conquer  this 
odious  oligarchy  of  slavery,  the  cause  of  popular 
rights  would  suffer  in  every  land,  Mr.  Beecherrose  to 
one  of  those  grander  oratoric  heights  for  which  this 
London  speech  is  distinguished.  "  Standing  by  my 
cradle,  standing  by  my  hearth,  standing  by  the  altar 
of  the  church,  standing  by  all  the  places  that  mark 
the  name  and  memory  of  heroic  men  who  poured  out 
their  blood  and  lives  for  principle,  I  declare  that  in 
ten  or  twenty  years  of  war,  we  will  sacrifice  every - 


1  *'  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  565. 


THE   AMERICAN    DEMOSTHENES   TRIUMPHS.  337 

thing  we  have  for  principle.  If  the  love  of  popular 
liberty  is  dead  in  Great  Britain,  you  will  not  under- 
stand us  ;  but  if  the  love  of  liberty  lives  as  it  once  lived, 
and  has  worthy  successors  of  those  renowned  men 
that  were  our  ancestors  as  well  as  yours,  and  whose 
examples  and  principles  we  inherit  as  so  much 
seed-corn  in  a  new  and  fertile  land,  then  you  will 
understand  our  firm,  invincible  determination — to 
fight  this  war  through,  at  all  hazards,  and  at  every 
cost."  ] 

And  in  rebuking  that  hypocritical  British  horror  of 
the  American  war,  he  cried  out:  "On  what  shore  has 
not  the  prow  of  your  ships  dashed  ?  What  land  is 
there  with  a  name  and  people  where  your  banner  has 
not  led  your  soldiers?  And  when  the  great  resur- 
rection reveille  shall  sound,  it  will  muster  British 
soldiers  from  every  clime  and  people  under  the 
whole  heaven.  Ah!  but  it  is  said  that  this  is  a  war 
against  your  own  blood.  How  long  is  it  since  you 
poured  soldiers  into  Canada  and  let  all  your  yards 
work  night  and  day  to  avenge  the  taking  of  two  men 
out  of  the  Trent  ?  "  2 

Referring  to  the  declaration  of  the  London  Times 
that  the  American  people  were  sore  because  they  had 
not  the  moral  sympathy  of  Great  Britain,  he  remarked 
that  "  those  who  are  represented  in  the  newspapers 
as  favorable  to  the  South  are  like  men  who  have 
arrows  and  bows  strong  enough  to  send  the  shafts 
three  thousand  miles;  and  those  who  feel  sympathy 
for  the  North  are  like  men  who  have  shafts  but  have 
no  bows   that  could   shoot   them   far  enough."     He 


,"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  566.     i  "Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  568. 
12 


338  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

believed  that  he  would  have  a  different  story  to  tell 
when  he  returned  home. 

Loud  and  enthusiastic  cheering  followed  this 
declaration,  and  then,  very  fortunately,  a  voice  cried 
out:  "What  about  the  Russians?"  Mr.  Beecher 
explained  in  a  sportive  and  confidential  way  that 
New  York,  in  treating  the  Russians  so  warmly,  was 
only  flirting  with  Russia,  while  all  the  time  her  eye 
was  on  England.  He  agreed  with  his  audience  that 
American  sympathy  with  the  oppressor  of  Poland 
was  out  of  place.  "  Certainly  it  is,"  he  cried,  and 
when  the  shouts  had  entirely  subsided,  and  a  little 
time  had  been  allowed  for  friend  and  foe  to  specu- 
late as  to  his  reply,  he  leaned  forward  and  putting 
on  an  extremely  simple  expression,  he  said  in  a  mild 
voice:  "I  think  so,  too.  And  now  you  know  exactly 
how  we  felt  when  you  were  flirting  with  Mr.  Mason 
at  your  Lord  Mayor's  banquet."  ' 

It  is  said  that  the  people  rose  with  a  shout  that 
began  to  be  applause  and  soon  became  laughter. 
Three  groans  were  given  for  the  late  Lord  Mayor.  Dr. 
Holmes  has  said:  "  A  cleaner  and  straighter  '  counter  ' 
than  that  ...  is  hardly  to  be  found  in  the 
records  of  British  pugilism." 

Mr.  Beecher  followed  this  hit  by  saying:  "  I  stand 
here  to  declare  that  America  is  the  proper  and  natural 
ally  of  Great  Britain;  I  declare  that  all  sorts  of  alli- 
ances with  Continental  Nations,  as  against  America, 
are  monstrous,  and  that  all  flirtations  of  America  with 
pandoured  and  whiskered  foreigners  are  monstrous, 
and  that,  in  the  great  conflicts  of  the  future,  when 


"  Biography,"  p.  436. 


THE   AMERICAN    DEMOSTHENES   TRIUMPHS.  339 

civilization  is  to  be  extended,  when  commerce  is  to  be 
free  around  the  globe,  and  to  carry  with  it  religion 
and  civilization,  then  two  flags  should  be  flying  from 
every  man-of-war  and  every  ship,  and  they  should  be 
the  flag  with  the  cross  of  St.  George,  and  the  flag 
with  the  stars  of  promise  and  of  hope."1 

At  the  close  of  this  great  address,  in  some  respects 
the  most  effective  and  noblest  of  all  his  English 
speeches,  the  resolution  of  cordial  thanks,  offered  by 
Professor  Newman,  and  seconded,  with  earnest 
words,  by  Rev.  Newman  Hall  and  Mr.  George  Thomp- 
son, was  carried  amidst  loud  cheers,  while  only  three 
hands  were  held  up  against  it. 

And  so  ended  the  public  campaign  in  England. 
What  Mr.  Beecher  had  hoped  to  accomplish  had  been 
brought  about,  and  the  immense  opposition  had  only 
augmented  his  triumphs  "  The  idea  of  raising  lec- 
turers to  go  through  England,  and  turn  the  common 
people  away  from  the  North  and  toward  the  South, 
was  now  abandoned.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  whole 
country  now  ran  strongly  in  the  other  direction."2 

A  prominent  English  paper  is  quoted  in  the 
"  Biography  "  as  saying  that  "  before  he  left  England 
he  had  thoroughly  gained  the  sympathies  of  the 
people  for  the  cause  of  the  North,  and  he  had  no 
small  share  in  averting  a  collision,  which  at  one  period 
of  the  Civil  War  threatened  ominously  between  this 
country  and  the  United  States."  And  prominent 
New  York  journals  claimed  that,  from  the  whole  tone 
of  the  British  press,  it  was  evident  that  Mr.  Beecher 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  570. 

2  From  Mr.  Beecher's  Reminiscences  in  "  Life,"  p.  180. 


34°  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

had  hastened  a  complete  revolution  of  the  popular 
feeling  of  the  Kingdom  in  favor  of  the  National 
cause,  and  that  his  English  speeches  had  done  more 
for  that  cause  in  England  and  Scotland  than  all  else 
that  had  been  said  and  written. 

Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  has  truthfully  characterized  the 
English  speeches  as  the  greatest  oratorical  work  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  life,  and  he  thinks  the  only  parallel  in 
public  effect  was  that  produced  by  the  orations 
of  Demosthenes  against  Philip  of  Macedon. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  other  American  then  living 
could  have  accomplished  what  Mr.  Beecher  did,  and 
it  is  doubtful  if  any  man  of  this  century  has  been 
gifted  with  powers  of  public  speech  so  various,  re- 
sourceful, morally  noble  and  impressive,  and  perma- 
nently effective,  as  those  upon  which  Mr.  Beecher 
drew  to  the  utmost  in  this  heroic  and  historical  cam- 
paign. 

All  the  forces  which  may  be  called  hereditary,  and 
all  those  acquired  by  severe  study,  widened  by  vast 
experience,  and  sharpened  and  made  ready  by  long 
years  of  constant  practice,  were  brought  into  imperial 
and  sudden  requisition. 

Can  we  not  almost  hear  the  stroke  of  the  black- 
smith's hammer  with  which  his  grandfather  pounded 
the  old  anvil  as  we  mark  the  orator's  sledge-hammer 
strokes  against  the  English  mobs?  The  mastery  of 
speech  inherited,  in  part  from  his  lion-hearted  father, 
which  was  developed  by  his  youthful  readings  of 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Burke  in  the  old  Amherst 
days,  and  was  perfected  by  nearly  thirty  years  of 
incessant  practice  from  pulpit  and  platform,  had  been 
put    to    the    best    use    and    grandest    illustration    in 


THE   AMERICAN   DEMOSTHENES    TRIUMPHS.  34I 

defending  the  good  old  cause  which  Milton  had 
championed,  in  the  land  where  the  poet-Puritan  lived 
and  died. 

All  the  traditions  and  glories  of  British  freedom, 
from  the  days  when  Stephen  Langton  headed  the 
Barons  at  Runnymede  down  to  the  time  when  the 
youthful  Samuel  Adams  defended  before  an  English 
Governor  the  right  of  resisting  oppression;  all  the 
Christian  sentiments  and  convictions  which  in  noblest 
natures  have  proved  a  shield  to  protect  and  save  the 
weak  and  wronged;  all  the  fiery  patriotism  which 
surged  in  the  hearts  of  a  great  people,  struggling  for 
existence  and  National  honor,  and  blazing  forth  amid 
the  carnage  of  Shiloh  and  Gettysburg,  lived  and 
glowed  in  this  great  son  of  the  Puritans  whom  God 
raised  up  to  plead  before  England  in  behalf  of 
struggling  America,  for  all  that  made  both  nations 
noble  and  glorious. 

Mr.  J.  L.  Cunningham,  of  Dundee,  Scotland,  writes 
that  one  great  result  which  came  out  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
visit  to  Great  Britain,  was  that  "  the  Nation,  as  a 
Nation,  was  so  roused  up  to  stand  by  the  North  in 
their  momentous  struggle  that  the  Government, 
which  were  being  wrought  upon  by  Louis  Napoleon 
to  recognize  the  South,  were  compelled  to  remain 
neutral."  ' 

What  Mr.  Beecher  wrought  by  his  "  logic  and  his 
love  "  has  been  frequently  and  eloquently  told  by 
Rev.  Newman  Hall. 

A  series  of  farewell  breakfasts  in  London,  Man. 
Chester,  and    Liverpool  followed    these    historic  ad« 

1  *'  Life,"  p.  368. 


342  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

dresses.  The  speeches  which  Mr.  Beecher  made 
were  as  admirable  as  some  of  his  famous  public 
orations,  and,  since  he  was  forced  to  answer  many 
questions  put  by  shrewd  men,  the  intellectual  ordeal 
he  found  much  more  severe  than  the  physical  exhaus- 
tion of  the  night  speeches. 

In  the  address  adopted  by  two  or  three  hundred 
gentlemen,  mostly  ministers  of  different  denomina- 
tions who  met  Mr.  Beecher  at  breakfast  in  London 
on  the  23d  of  October,  it  was  said  of  him  that  "  it  is 
known  to  us  that  even  those  who  are  opposed  to  war 
under  all  circumstances,  frankly  acknowledged  that 
the  tendency  of  Mr.  Beecher's  speeches  in  Glasgow, 
in  Manchester,  in  Edinburgh,  in  Liverpool,  and  pre- 
eminently in  London,  has  been  to  produce  in  the 
highest  degree  international  good  will.  He  has 
sought  not  to  irritate  but  to  convince  :  he  has  admin- 
istered rebuke  with  mingled  fidelity  and  affection  ; 
he  has  been  courteous  without  servility,  he  has  met 
passion  with  patience,  prejudice  with  reason,  and 
blind  hostility  with  glowing  charity;  he  has  cast 
the  seed  of  truth  amid  the  howling  tempest  with  a 
clear  eye  and  steady  hand."1 

In  the  address  which  he  made  at  this  farewell  break- 
fast he  said:  "  I  go  home  not  for  the  first  time  believ- 
ing in  a  special  Providence,  but  to  be  once  more  a 
witness  to  my  people  of  the  preciousness  and  truth  of 
the  doctrine  'God  is  present  with  us.'"  In  the  ad- 
dress made  to  him  at  the  farewell  breakfast  given  to 
him  in  Liverpool,  October  30th,  the  Chairman  con- 
gratulated Mr.  Beecher  on  the  great  success  of  his  mis- 


Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  575. 


THE   AMERICAN   DEMOSTHENES   TRIUMPHS.  343 

sion:  "  You  have  had  large  and  influential  meetings  in 
other  great  towns  and  cities;  and,  sir,  you  have  fought 
with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  but  even  here,  the  closing 
scenes  must  have  convinced  you  how  impotent  were  the 
bellowings  and  howlings,  the  occasional  bleatings  and 
cacklings,  of  the  Southern  hirelings  to  stifle  the  voice  of 
Liverpool  for  freedom."  In  his  reply,  Mr.  Beecher 
said  that  he  had  no  idea  how  his  efforts  would  be  re- 
ceived in  America,  "  I  think  it  likely  that  many  papers, 
that  have  never  been  ardent  admirers  of  mine,  will 
find  great  fault  with  my  statements,  will  controvert 
my  facts,  will  traverse  my  reasonings.  I  do  not  know 
but  that  men  will  say  that  I  have  conceded  too  much, 
and  that,  melting  under  the  influence  of  England, 
I  have  not  been  as  sturdy  in  my  blows  here  as  I  was 
in  my  own  land."  ] 

Similar  criticism  was  made  twenty  years  later  of 
another  American  minister  to  England,  James  Russell 
Lowell,  one  of  the  sturdiest  as  well  as  the  most  cul- 
tured of  Americans,  who  continued  the  work  of 
international  pacification  so  happily  begun  by  Mr. 
Beecher. 

In  his  final  words  he  said:  "You  have  made  your- 
selves so  kind  to  me  that  my  heart  clings  to  you;  I  leave 
jiot  strangers  any  longer,  I  leave  friends  behind.  I 
shall  probably  never,  at  my  time  of  life — I  am  now 
fifty  years  of  age,  and  at  that  time  men  seldom  make 
great  changes, —  I  shall  probably  see  England  no  more, 
but  I  shall  never  cease  to  see  her;  I  shall  never  speak 
any  more  here,  but  I  shall  never  cease  to  be  heard  in 
England  as  long  as  I  live.     Three  thousand  miles  is 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  627. 


344  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

not  as  wide  now  as  your  hand;  the  air  is  one  great 
sounding  gallery.  What  you  whisper  in  your  closet 
is  heard  in  the  infinite  depths  of  Heaven.  God  has 
given  to  the  moral  power  of  His  Church  something 
like  His  own  power.  What  you  do  in  your  pulpits  in 
England  we  hear  in  America,  and  what  we  do  in  our 
pulpits,  you  hear  and  feel  here,  and  so  it  shall  be 
more  and  more.  Across  the  sea,  that  is,  as  it  were, 
but  a  rivulet,  we  shall  stretch  out  our  hands  of  greet- 
ing to  you,  and  speak  words  of  peace  and  fraternal 
love  Let  us  not  fail  to  hear  '  Amen  '  and  your  re- 
sponsive greeting  whenever  we  call  to  you  in  fraternal 
love  for  liberty,  for  religion,  for  the  Church  of  God. 
Farewell." ' 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  639. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII. 

THE  GREAT  WAR  DRAMA  ENDED. 

Mr.  Beecher  returned  home  in  November,  con- 
scious that,  while  in  England,  he  had  used  every 
single  faculty  and  every  particle  of  his  strength  for 
the  service  of  his  imperiled  country.  He  declared 
that  he  had  worked  for  America  with  the  concen- 
trated essence  of  his  very  being. 

On  the  eve  of  his  departure  for  England,  in  a 
familiar  lecture  to  his  people,  on  May  7th,  he  had 
spoken  freely  of  the  prospect  of  death  and  of  his 
feelings  that  seemed  to  him  at  times  indications  of 
approaching  dissolution.  While  in  England  he  ex- 
pected to  die;  he  did  not  believe  that  he  should  get 
through  his  campaign.  "I  thought  at  times  that  I 
should  certainly  break  a  blood-vessel  or  have  apo- 
plexy. I  did  not  care;  I  was  as  willing  to  die  as  ever 
I  was,  when  hungry  and  thirsty,  to  take  refreshment, 
if  I  might  die  for  my  country." 

He  was  sick  during  the  long  voyage  home.  The 
ship  on  which  he  came  was  loaded  down  with  mili- 
tary stores  destined  for  the  Bermudas,  and  was  full 
of  bitter  partisans  of  the  South.  But  the  man  who 
had  made  English  partisanship  of  the  South  unavail- 
ing was  lying  ill  in  his  cabin.     At  Halifax  he  had  a 


346  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

telegram  from  his  wife  which  seemed  like  a  vision  to 
one  who  had  been  shut  up  so  long  in  darkness  and 
suffering. 

He  arrived  in  Boston  Saturday  night,  and  landed 
on  Sunday  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  A 
custom-house  officer  said  to  him:  "If  you  had  come 
in  on  a  week-day,  we  were  to  have  given  you  a  recep- 
tion that  would  have  made  things  hum."  He  re- 
turned to  America  with  an  immense  increase  of  popu- 
larity and  with  far  kindlier  feelings  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet.  The  Administration 
in  Washington  no  longer  misinterpreted  the  severe 
and  constant  criticisms  of  1862  as  a  mark  of  hostile 
feeling.  Confidential  relations  were  established  be- 
tween Mr.  Lincoln  and  himself,  and  letters  passed  to 
and  fro,  and  more  than  once  the  greatest  of  American 
orators  held  conference  at  Washington  with  the 
greatest  of  American  statesmen. 

Two  grand  receptions  were  given  him  on  his  re- 
turn, one  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  Brooklyn,  and 
the  other  in  the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York.  An 
admission  fee  of  one  dollar  for  the  benefit  of  the  San- 
itary Committee  did  not  prevent  the  Brooklyn  people 
from  crowding  the  building  on  this  memorable  occa- 
sion with  an  enthusiastic  throng.  Dr.  Storrs  was  the 
presiding  officer,  and  eloquently  expressed  the  grateful 
feeling  of  America  for  Mr.  Beecher's  services  in  in- 
forming the  mind  of  the  great  middle-class  of  Eng- 
lishmen so  "  that  the  war-ships  framed  by  Confederate 
malice  and  commercial  cupidity  to  harass  our  com- 
merce, to  break  our  blockades,  or  desolate  our  cities 
were  not  to  be  left  to  steal  out  to  sea  from  any  loose 
interpretation  of  the  law,  but  were  to  be  kept  chained 


THE    GREAT    WAR    DRAMA    ENDED.  347 

to  the  docks  and  held  there  by  the  strong  arm  of  the 
Government." ' 

Mr.  Beecher  put  no  immoderate  estimate  on  his 
services  in  England,  but  he  believed  that  his  effort 
was  timely,  and  that  Grant's  victory  at  Vicksburg 
and  Lee's  defeat  at  Gettysburg  had  helped  prepare 
England  to  listen  to  his  statements.  It  was  his  good 
fortune  to  shake  down  the  fruit  which  others  had 
ripened. 

Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt,  in  his  reminiscenses,  writes  this 
description  of  the  scene  in  New  York,  when  the  citizens 
of  the  American  metropolis  gave  Mr.  Beecher  their 
great  welcome:  "The  Academy  was  crowded  from 
pit  to  dome;  the  aisles  and  platform  were  full;  scores 
of  distinguished  men  were  present.  Mr.  Beecher  came 
in  at  eight  o'clock.  His  entrance  was  the  signal  for 
applause  and  cheers;  the  audience  rising  to  their  feet 
to  greet  him.  He  stood  motionless  for  five  minutes, 
apparently  unmoved,  and  finally  an  opportunity  was 
given  him  to  speak.  He  then  told  of  his  experiences 
abroad;  told  in  his  modest  way  what  he  had  endeav- 
ored to  do  for  his  country,  and  although  the  hero  of 
the  occasion  and  the  recipient  of  all  the  honors  and 
applause  of  which  any  man  might  be  proud  and 
which  one  could  never  forget,  he  spoke  modestly,  in 
a  most  unassuming  manner,  and  told  only  of  his  earn- 
est efforts  to  serve  the  country  he  loved  so  well  and 
to  place  her  rightly  before  England." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  experiences  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  life  rose  out  of  the  warm  friendship  that 
had    sprung   up   between    Mr.  Stanton,  Secretary   of 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  437,  438. 


348  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

War,  and  himself.  Hearing  that  the  great  Secretary, 
who,  like  Carnot,  organized  victory,  was  sick  and 
despondent,  and  that  even  his  "  Atlantean  shoulders, 
fit  to  bear  the  weight  of  mightiest  monarchies,"  were 
breaking  down  under  the  enormous  burdens  of  the 
war,  Mr.  Beecher  wrote  him  an  impulsive,  cordial, 
tender,  sympathetic  letter,  which  greatly  touched 
Stanton's  heart.  "  Often  and  often,"  wrote  Stanton, 
in  reply,  "  in  the  dark  hours,  you  have  come  to  me, 
and  I  have  longed  to  hear  your  voice,  feeling  that 
above  all  other  men  you  could  cheer,  strengthen, 
quiet,  and  uplift  me  in  this  great  battle,  where,  by 
God's  Providence,  it  has  fallen  upon  me  to  hold  a  part 
and  perform  a  duty  beyond  my  own  strength."1 

After  the  surrender  of  Charleston,  in  1865,  the 
Secretary  wrote  Mr.  Beecher,  in  reply  to  a  letter  from 
him:  "Your  idea  of  raising  the  flag  over  a  colored 
school  and  making  our  banner  the  banner  of  civiliza- 
tion is  indeed  a  noble  one  and  heartily  my  feelings 
respond  to  your  suggestion."  When  it  was  decided, 
later,  to  celebrate  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  by  raising 
once  more  the  National  flag  over  its  walls,  on  the  14th 
of  April,  1865,  Mr.  Beecher  was  invited  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  to  pronounce  the  public  address  on  thai 
great  occasion.  During  the  last  week  of  the  decisivtf 
struggle  around  Richmond,  Mr.  Stanton  coramuni- 
cated  by  telegraph  with  Mr.  Beecher  after  every 
important  movement.  Some  idea  of  the  immense 
excitement  and  elevation  of  popular  feeling  during 
those  fateful  days  may  be  gathered  from  an  incident 
in  Plymouth  Church  on  Sunday,  April  2,  when,  after 


Biography,"  p.  448. 


THE    GREAT    WAR    DRAMA    ENDED.  349 

the  sermon,  a  telegram  from  Stanton  was  handed  to 
Mr.  Beecher.  The  silent  reading  of  it  illumined  his 
face  and  made  the  congregation  expectant.  Asking 
the  thousands  present  to  turn  to  "America,"  he  read 
the  dispatch  which  announced  important  victories 
for  the  Union  armies  after  three  days  hard  fighting. 
The  noble  hymn  was  sung  with  streaming  eyes  and 
all  the  trumpet-stops  of  the  great  organ,  drawn  out 
to  the  full,  could  not  drown  the  voices  of  solemn 
praise.  It  is  said  that  more  than  one  strong  man, 
when  the  hymn  was  ended,  dropped  into  his  seat  sob- 
bing with  thankfulness. 

The  steamer  Arago  sailed  from  New  York  for 
Charleston  on  the  8th  of  April,  having  on  board  not 
only  Mr.  Beecher  but  also  the  pioneer  of  American 
Abolitionists — William  Lloyd  Garrison,  Rev.  Dr. 
Storrs,  of  Brooklyn,  General  Anderson,  Judge  Kelly,  of 
Philadelphia,  Senator  Wilson,  Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  Rev. 
Samuel  Scoville  (son-in-law  of  Mr.  Beecher),  General 
Doubleday,  Mr.  George  Thompson,  and  many  others. 
The  next  day  General  Lee  surrendered  to  Grant,  but 
not  until  the  Arago  arrived  at  the  harbor  of  Charles- 
ton was  the  great  news  communicated  to  them  from 
another  ship.  "  The  wild  outcry,  the  strange  caprices 
and  exultations  of  that  moment,  they  never  will  for- 
get who  were  present  We  were  far  off  from  the 
scene  of  war  ;  we  saw  no  signs  nor  tokens  ;  it  was  as 
if  the  heavens  had  imparted  it  to  us ;  but,  Oh  !  what 
gladness,  what  ecstasy  there  was  in  that  news  no  one 
can  know  but  those  who  had  suffered  as  we  had  suf- 
fered." ' 


"  Biography,"  p.  451. 


350  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

On  the  14th  of  April,  the  hand  of  Major-General 
Anderson  raised,  on  the  broken  walls  of  Sumter,  the 
same  flag  which  had  been  lowered  four  years  before, 
on  the  14th  of  April,  1861.  The  flag  was  saluted  by  a 
hundred  guns  from  Fort  Sumter  and  by  a  National 
salute  from  every  fort  and  rebel  battery  that  had  fired 
on  that  historic  citadel.  "  Previous  to  the  raising  of 
the  flag,  the  steamer  Planter,  Captain  Robert  Smalls, 
which,  it  will  be  remembered,  ran  the  rebel  gauntlet 
in  1862,  came  to  the  Fort  loaded  down  with  between 
two  and  three  thousand  of  the  emancipated  race  of 
all  ages  and  sizes.  Their  appearance  was  warmly 
welcomed  and  their  joy  unbounded."1 

The  raising  of  the  flag  was  itself  indefinitely  more 
eloquent  than  any  words  that  even  Mr.  Beechercould 
utter,  and  yet  his  words  were  among  the  wisest 
and  noblest  that  he  ever  spoke.  He  began  with  a 
prayer  that  the  uplifted  flag  might  ever  be  crowned 
with  honor  and  protected  from  treason.  He  described 
how  the  glorious  banner  had  been  shot  down  ;  how 
after  the  long  night  of  four  years,  it  was  devoutly 
raised  again.  Rebellion  had  perished  but  the  flag 
had  not  ;  the  Nation  exulted  not  for  passions  grati- 
fied but  for  truth  victorious  ;  the  restoration  of  the 
flag  meant  the  restoration  of  a  vindicated  Nation. 
The  raising  of  the  banner  brought  back  better  bless- 
ings than  those  of  old.  He  recalled  the  memories  of 
the  fathers,  and  how  the  fathers  of  the  men  who  had 
fired  on  the  flag  would  themselves  have  been  willing 
to  die  for  it.  The  banner  which  came  back  to  its  old 
place  was  now   the  banner  of   Emancipation.      Old 


1  "William  Lloyd  Garrison,"  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  141-142. 


THE    GREAT    WAR   DRAMA   ENDED.  351 

things  had  passed  away,  all  things  were  to  be  made 
new.  Society  was  to  be  reorganized  on  sounder 
foundations;  the  uplifted  flag  meant  indivisible 
National  Government;  it  meant  that  the  States  were 
not  absolute  sovereigns  and  had  no  right  to  secede  ; 
it  meant  that  slavery  was  for  ever  gone. 

In  words  of  terrible  picturesque'ness  he  described 
the  hideous  vastness  and  infernal  horrors  of  the  war 
which  had  been  ended,  and  he  recited  how  the  ruling 
class  of  the  South,  the  aristocracy  of  the  plantations, 
had  deliberately,  secretly,  unscrupulously  planned 
the  disruption  of  the  Nation  that  they  might  found  a 
slave-empire — "  an  armed  band  of  pestilent  conspir- 
ators seeking  the  Northern  life."  He  charged  the 
whole  guilt  of  the  war  upon  the  ambitious,  educated, 
plotting,  political  leaders  of  the  South. 

In  these  days  of  restored  national  good-feeling,  in 
this  golden  age  of  fraternity  between  the  North  and 
South,  which  Mr.  Beecher,  perhaps  more  than  any 
one  else,  helped  to  usher  in,  some  of  his  sentences  in 
the  Fort  Sumter  flag-raising  speech,  seem  utterly 
unlike  his  general  spirit.  What  indignation  he  felt, 
he  launched  at  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  but  this 
never  prevented  his  cherishing  the  warmest  kindness 
toward  the  Southern  people. 

He  said:  "A  day  will  come  when  God  will  reveal 
judgment  and  arraign  at  His  bar  these  mighty  mis- 
creants; and  then  every  orphan  that  their  bloody 
game  has  made,  and  every  widow  that  sits  sorrowing, 
and  every  maimed  and  wounded  sufferer,  and  every 
bereaved  heart  in  all  the  wide  regions  of  this  land, 
will  rise  up  and  come  before  the  Lord  to  lay  upon 
these   chief  culprits  of   modern   history  their  awful 


352  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

testimony.  And  from  a  thousand  battlefields  shall 
rise  up  armies  of  airy  witnesses,  who,  with  the 
memory  of  their  awful  sufferings,  shall  confront  these 
miscreants  with  shrieks  of  fierce  accusation;  and 
every  pale  and  starved  prisoner  shall  raise  his  skinny 
hand  in  judgment.  Blood  shall  call  out  for  vengeance 
and  tears  plead  for  justice,  and  grief  shall  silently 
beckon,  and  love,  heart-smitten,  shall  wail  for  justice. 
Good  men  and  angels  will  cry  out,  '  How  long,  Oh 
Lord,  how  long,  wilt  Thou  not  avenge  ?' " 

Sternly  indignant  as  these  words  are,  Mr.  Beecher 
rises  at  once  still  higher  in  his  righteous  wrath 
against  deliberate  wickedness,  and  his  words  seem 
a  strong  echo  of  what  Milton  had  written  two  hun- 
dred years  before  in  the  most  magnificent  passage  of 
English  prose.  The  orator  said:  "And  then  these 
guiltiest  and  most  remorseless  traitors,  these  high  and 
cultured  men  with  might  and  wisdom,  used  for  the 
destruction  of  their  country;  these  most  accursed  and 
detested  of  all  criminals  that  have  drenched  a  conti- 
nent in  needless  blood  and  moved  the  foundations  of 
their  times  with  hideous  crimes  and  cruelty,  caught  up 
in  black  clouds  full  of  voices  of  vengeance  and  lurid 
with  punishment,  shall  be  whirled  aloft  and  plunged 
downward  for  ever  and  for  ever  in  an  endless  retribu- 
tion; while  God  shall  say,  'Thus  shall  it  be  to  all 
who  betray  their  country,'  and  all  in  heaven  and  upon 
earth  will  say,  '  Amen.'  "  ' 

But  for  the  misled  people  of  the  South  there  was 
not  one  word  or  trace  of  animosity.  On  the  contrary, 
there  was  nothing  but  fraternal  kindness.   He  believed 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  pp.  688-689. 


THE    GREAT    WAR    DRAMA    ENDED.  353 

that  through  the  agency  of  the  Civil  War  the  Nation 
had  attained  its  manhood;  that,  as  a  people,  we  had 
something  to  be  proud  of;  that  in  four  years  we  had 
made  the  advance  of  half  a  century;  that  an  educated 
and  moral  people  had  been  shown  to  be  equal  to  all 
the  exigences  of  National  life;  that  we  had  proved 
ourselves  to  be  of  all  nations  the  most  dangerous 
and  yet  the  least  to  be  feared;  that  deadly  doctrines 
had  been  purged  away  in  blood;  that  the  moral  and 
military  capacity  of  the  black  race  had  been  proved; 
that,  thenceforth,  the  industry  of  the  Southern  States 
was  to  rest  on  better  foundations,  and  that,  with  the 
destruction  of  class-interests,  a  new  era  of  pros- 
perity would  dawn  on  the  laboring  people  of  the 
South. 

From  that  historic  pulpit  of  broken  stones  on  the 
walls  of  Fort  Sumter,  he  offered  most  grateful  thanks 
to  the  members  of  the  National  Government,  to  the 
officers  and  men  of  the  army  and  navy,  to  the  true 
and  faithful  citizens — men  and  women — who  had 
borne  up  with  unflinching  hope  in  the  darkest  hours 
and  covered  the  land  with  labors  of  love;  and,  above 
all,  to  the  God  of  the  fathers,  he  gave  thanksgiving 
and  praise,  Who,  from  such  a  harvest  of  war,  had 
brought  forth  the  seed  of  so  much  liberty  and  peace. 

He  also  offered  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States  solemn  congratulations  that  God  had  sustained 
his  life  under  unparelleled  burdens,  and  permitted  him 
to  see  that  consummation  for  which  he  had  toiled  with 
such  unselfish  wisdom.  Alas,  the  good  President  was 
never  to  receive  this  greeting.  The  day  on  which 
the  flag  was  lifted  on  Sumter  was  the  last  day  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  conscious  life. 
23 


354  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

"  Oh  Captain,  my  Captain,  our  fearful  trip  is  done, 
The  ship  has  weathered  every  rock,  the  prize  we  sought  is  won, 
The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  exulting, 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim  and  daring : 

But  oh  Heart,  Heart,  Heart, 
Oh  the  bleeding  drops  of  red, 
Where  on  the  deck  my  Captain  lies 
Fallen  cold  and  dead." 

After  two  days  spent  in  visiting  Charleston,  Mr. 
Beecher's  party  proceeded  to  Hilton  Head,  and  thence 
made  an  excursion  on  the  Government  steamer  to 
Beaufort.  As  they  were  going  back  to  the  boat,  after 
inspecting  the  points  of  interest  there,  the  news  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  assassination  darkened  all  their  joyous- 
ness.  In  the  midst  of  the  silence  which  followed  the 
terrible  news,  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "  It  is  time  all  good 
men  were  at  home." 

With  what  changed  feelings  did  this  memorable 
party  reenter  the  harbor  of  New  York !  As  Mr. 
Beecher  said  in  his  sermon  in  memory  of  Lincoln: 
"  Did  ever  so  many  hearts  in  so  brief  a  time  touch 
two  such  boundless  feelings?  It  was  the  uttermost  of 
joy;  it  was  the  uttermost  of  sorrow — noon  and  mid- 
night without  a  space  between.  The  blow  brought 
not  a  sharp  pang.  It  was  so  terrible  that  at  first  it 
stunned  sensibility.  Citizens  were  like  men  awakened 
at  midnight  by  an  earthquake,  and  bewildered  to 
find  that  everything  they  were  accustomed  to  trust 
wavering  and  falling.  The  very  earth  was  no  longer 
solid."  ' 

In  closing  this  sermon  on  Lincoln  he  said:      Four 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  704. 


THE    GREAT   WAR    DRAMA   ENDED.  355 

years  ago,  Oh  Illinois,  we  took  from  your  midst  an 
untried  man  and  from  among  the  people;  we  return 
him  to  you  a  mighty  conqueror.  Not  thine  any  more, 
but  the  Nation's;  not  ours,  but  the  World's.  Give  him 
place,  ye  prairies!  In  the  midst  of  this  great  con- 
tinent his  dust  shall  rest,  a  sacred  altar  to  myriads 
who  shall  make  pilgrimage  to  that  shrine  to  kindle 
anew  their  zeal  and  patriotism.  Ye  winds,  that  move 
over  the  mighty  places  of  the  West,  chant  his  requiem! 
Ye  people,  behold  a  martyr  whose  blood,  as  so  many 
articulate  words,  pleads  for  fidelity,  for  law,  for 
liberty."  » 


1  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  712. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

BLESSED    ARE    THE    PEACEMAKERS. 

Mr.  Beecher's  historic  career  as  a  reformer  may 
now  be  said  to  have  ended.  Whatever  services  he 
thenceforth  rendered  to  his  country  were  largely 
those  of  a  wise,  patriotic,  conservative  man,  sometimes 
mistaken,  perhaps,  in  the  timeliness  of  his  efforts,  but 
earnest  to  heal  the  wounds  of  war.  Possessing  no 
vindictiveness  of  spirit,  and  having  a  superabundant 
charity  for  the  South,  he  argued  for  a  speedy  read- 
mission  of  the  Southern  States  to  their  old  places  in 
the  Union. 

President  Johnson's  plan  of  Reconstruction  was 
fiercely  antagonized  by  the  great  mass  of  the  Repub- 
lican party,  who  justly  felt  the  necessity  of  first  se- 
curing guarantees  for  the  rights  of  the  imperiled 
black  man. 

The  proposition  to  make  an  example  of  Jefferson 
Davis  appeared  to  Mr.  Beecher  ridiculous  and  wrong. 
"  The  war  itself  is  the  most  terrific  warning  that 
could  be  set  up,  and  to  attempt  by  erecting  against 
this  lurid  background  the  petty  figure  of  a  gallows, 
with  a  man  dangling  at  it  to  heighten  the  effect, 
would  be  like  lighting  tapers  when  God's  lightnings 
are  flashing  across  the  heavens  to  add  grandeur  to 
the  storm." 

In  the  sermon,  preached  October  29,  1865,  he  said: 
"  There  are  many  who  desire  to  see  the  South  hum- 


BLESSED   ARE   THE    PEACEMAKERS.  357 

bJed.  For  my  own  part,  I  think  it  to  be  the  great 
need  of  this  Nation  to  save  the  self-respect  of  the 
South.  I  am  very  thankful  that  those  who  have  been 
representative  men  in  the  North,  in  the  main — 
Gerritt  Smith,  Garrison,  and  others  such  as  they, — 
have  been  found  pleading  for  leniency,  and  opposed 
to  rigor  and  uncharitableness." 

Mr.  Beecher  did  not  favor  the  immediate  readmis- 
sion  of  the  States  without  conditions.  He  believed 
that,  first,  the  States  of  the  South  should  establish  for 
the  freedman  his  right  to  labor,  to  hold  property,  his 
equality  before  the  law,  and  his  full  protection,  and 
he  also  took  the  ground  that  the  right  of  suffrage 
should  be  granted  him.  "  Without  such  provision 
much  mischief  will  doubtless  rise." 

In  February,  1866,  Mr.  Beecher  replied  to  Wendell 
Phillips's  famous  lecture  called  "  The  South  Vic- 
torious," by  delivering  a  speech  called  "  The  North 
Victorious."  In  this  lecture  he  said:  "I  rely 
upon  reason  and  conscience.  Churches  are  my 
Congresses,  and  schoolhouses  my  legislators.  Kind- 
ness, equal  reciprocal  or  identical  interests,  — these 
are  renovating  influences;  and  I  would  not  wait 
too  long  for  laws  which,  at  best,  are  but  mills  which 
must  be  run  by  external  powers." 

"  My  heart  goes  out  toward  my  whole  country.  I 
mourn  for  those  outcast  States.  The  bitterness  of 
their  destruction;  the  wrath  that  has  come  upon  them; 
their  desolation — you  know  nothing  of  these.  The 
sublimest  monument  that  has  ever  been  reared  in  this 
world  to  justify  God's  abhorrence  of  cruelty  and  re- 
bellion has  its  base  as  broad  as  fifteen  States." 

Mr.  Beecher  had  written  President  Johnson  of  his 


358  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

earnest  desire  that  the  Government  should  not  invade 
the  true  rights  of  the  States,  and  also  of  the  necessity 
of  securing  for  the  freedmen  the  kindness  of  South- 
ern white  men.  In  the  autumn  of  1866,  Mr.  Beecher 
wrote  his  famous  letter  to  the  National  Convention  of 
Soldiers  and  Sailors  in  Cleveland,  which  disfavored 
the  policy  of  exclusion.  In  this  letter  he  advocated 
the  prompt  readmission  of  the  Southern  States,  and 
expressed  the  conviction  that  delay  complicated  the 
situation,  embittered  the  exiled  people,  and  made  in- 
dispensable the  use  of  the  army  in  support  of  local 
government. 

"To  keep  half  a  score  of  States  under  Federal  au- 
thority, but  without  national  ties  and  responsibilities; 
to  oblige  the  central  authority  to  govern  half  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  Union  by  Federal  civil  officers  and  by  the 
army,  is  a  policy  not  only  uncongenial  to  our  ideas 
and  principles,  but  preeminently  dangerous  to  the 
spirit  of  our  Government.  "  ' 

It  is  not  necessary  to  rehearse  the  arguments  of  this 
famous  letter,  which  brought  down  upon  its  author  a 
storm  of  fierce  dissent.  Probably  in  all  his  life  Mr. 
Beecher  was  never  attacked  so  bitterly  by  so  many 
persons,  whose  good  will  he  valued,  as  after  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Cleveland  letter.  He  had  resigned  the 
editorship  of  the  New  York  Independent,  although  he 
still  remained  a  regular  contributor  to  it.  The  new 
editor,  Theodore  Tilton,  attacked  his  old  friend  with 
ferocious  bitterness,  and  from  this  time  Mr.  Beecher 
felt  that  he  could  no  longer  be  connected  with  that 
journal  in  any  way,  and  therefore  terminated  his  con- 


'"  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  738. 


BLESSED    ARE    THE    PEACEMAKERS.  359 

tract  with  it.  The  public  temper  would  not  tolerate 
what  was  deemed  a  surrender  to  the  South. 

In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Stephen  H.  Tyng,  who  had  writ- 
ten Mr.  Beecher  cordially  approving  his  course,  he 
said:  "I  am  very  far  from  being  a  Johnson  man.  I 
am  an  advocate  of  the  principles  of  speedy  readjust- 
ment without  waiting  for  a  greater,  but  at  present  un- 
attainable, good."  Although,  like  many  other  men  of 
the  North,  he  had  spoken  high  and  extravagant 
words  of  praise  of  Mr.  Johnson,  he  felt  that  now  the 
President  was  the  greatest  obstacle  to  the  success  of 
his  own  views,  and  said  that,  if  the  choice  ever  came 
between  a  Copperhead  Johnson  party  and  Radical 
Republicanism,  he  would  not  for  a  moment  hesitate  to 
join  with  the  Republicans.  "The  moral  sentiment  of 
justice,  liberty  and  Christian  progress,  is  with  the  Re- 
publican side." 

What  he  feared  most  was  that  the  Southern  freed- 
men  might  be  ground  to  powder  between  the  very 
Southern  South  and  the  very  Northern  North.  Many 
of  his  friends  were  apprehensive  that  he  was  going 
over  to  the  enemy.  Dr.  Storrs  wrote  him  on  the 
7th  of  September:  "A  vast  number  of  people,  who 
have  loved  and  honored  you  for  years,  are  really  be- 
coming to  believe  that  you  have  gone  over  bodily.  Of 
course,  all  those  who  know  you  as  I  do,  know  this  to 
be  an  utter  misapprehension  of  your  position."  ' 

Many  years  later  Mr.  Beecher  said  of  the  Cleveland 
letter:  "  I  am  going  to  send  down  that  document  to 
my  children  as  one  of  the  most  glorious  things  I  ever 
did  in  my  life." 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  471 


360  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

In  a  second  letter,  written  September  8,  1866,  he 
gave  a  fuller  expression  of  his  views,  advocating  a 
middle  course  between  that  of  the  President  and  that 
of  Congress.  He  declared  that  the  attempt  to  class 
him  with  men  whom,  all  his  life,  he  had  utterly 
opposed,  had  failed.  It  was  with  a  firm  and  pathetic 
assurance  that  the  future  would  justify  his  consis- 
tency and  his  wisdom  that  he  said:  "I  have  done 
nothing  to  forfeit  the  good  name  which  I  have 
earned." 

And  the  closing  words  of  this  letter  deserve  to  be 
held  in  lasting  remembrance.  "  Better  days  are 
coming.  These  throes  of  our  day  are  labor  pains. 
In  some  moments,  which  it  pleases  God  to  give  me,  I 
think  I  discern  beyond  the  present  troubles,  and  over 
the  other  side  of  the  abyss  in  which  the  Nation  wal- 
lows, that  beautiful  form  of  Liberty — God's  dear 
child — whose  whole  beauty  was  never  yet  disclosed.  I 
know  her  solemn  face.  That  she  is  divine  I  know  by 
her  purity,  by  her  scepter  of  justice,  and  by  that  atmos- 
phere of  Love  that,  issuing  from  her,  as  light  from  a 
star,  moves  with  her  as  a  royal  atmosphere."  ' 

It  became  apparent,  as  the  storm  of  excitement 
subsided,  that  it  was  not  his  purpose  to  leave  his  party 
friends,  and  surrender  the  work  of  reconstruction  to 
the  men  whom  he  had  always  distrusted,  but  that, 
within  the  lines  of  the  Republican  party,  he  and 
those  who  thought  with  him  were  to  toil  for  the 
speedy  restoration  of  the  Southern  States. 

One  incident,  partly  ecclesiastical  and  partly  con- 
nected with  the   war  and  Mr.  Beecher's  campaign  in 


1 "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  749. 


BLESSED   ARE    THE    PEACEMAKERS.  361 

England,  deserves  to  be  noted  before  the  narrative  of 
this  epoch  in  his  career  is  finished.  It  is  described  in 
the  words  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  J.  G.  Merrill,  pastor  of 
the  Second  Parish  Church  in  Portland,  Maine.  He 
calls  the  incident  the  greatest  event  that  he  ever  wit- 
nessed in  his  life.  "  The  Congregational  Council  of 
1865,  which  met  in  Boston,  strangely  enough  found 
among  its  delegates  sent  from  Great  Britain  men  who 
had  sympathized  with  the  Confederacy.  That  such 
men  should  have  been  sent  to  the  Council  angered 
not  a  few  of  the  delegates  who  had  been  in  the  army 
of  the  Union.  Among  those  who  felt  aggrieved  was 
Chaplain  Quint,  who  took  occasion  to  tell  of  the 
British  bullets  and  blankets  that  he  had  seen  in  the 
hands  of  the  Confederates,  and  of  the  lack  of  loyalty 
to  the  cause  of  human  freedom  on  the  part  of 
the  Churches  in  the  mother  country,  which  were  now 
represented  in  the  Council  by  a  delegation  whose 
recorded  utterances  had  been  far  from  loyal  to  the 
Union. 

"  The  confusion  and  consternation  occasioned  by 
this  speech  can  hardly  be  imagined.  The  soldier  del- 
egates were  many  of  them  glad  that  the  sentiments 
which  they  felt,  had  been  so  vigorously  uttered. 
Others,  sensitive  to  the  courtesies  of  the  occasion, 
were  greatly  disturbed  that  the  guests  of  the  Council 
had  been  so  roughly  handled.  Was  there  any  man 
to  bring  order  out  of  the  confusion  that  ensued?  The 
Moderator  could  not  do  it.  The  call  came  from  all 
parts  of  the  house:  '  Beecher,  '  '  Beecher,'  'Henry 
Ward  Beecher.  '  Mr.  Beecher  declined  to  speak.  Dr. 
Joseph  P.  Thompson,  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle, 
New  York,  came  to  the  platform,  and  spoke  with  all 


362  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

of  the  eloquence  at  his  command.    He  accomplished 
nothing. 

"  The  call  was  again  made  for  Mr.  Beecher.  He 
yielded.  Coming  to  the  pulpit  from  behind,  his 
whole  frame  was  quivering  with  emotion.  With  his 
full  voice  he  burst  forth.  '  I  have  seen  the  time  when  I 
have  wished  England  was  damned.'  Then  followed  a 
torrent  of  righteous  indignation,  succeeded  by  words 
of  conciliation,  without  the  least  compromise  of 
patriotism,  until  at  last  he  uttered  this  challenge: 
'We  are  ready  to  forget  the  past;  the  future  is  before 
us, — it  is  ours  to  evangelize  the  world,  and  in  carry- 
ing forward  this  great  undertaking,  I  am  ready  to 
grasp  the  hands  of  our  English  brethren,  and  say 
that  America  will  put  two  men  into  the  field  where 
England  has  one,  and  that  each  American  will  do  the 
work  of  two  Englishmen!  '  He  was  then  at  the  very 
front  of  the  platform,  the  English  delegates  directly 
before  him.  They  grasped  his  outstretched  hands; 
the  whole  congregation  rose  to  their  feet.  With  tears, 
shouts,  waving  of  handkerchiefs,  and  other  demon- 
strations of  delight,  they  were  as  one  man  carried  cap- 
tive by  the  only  man  of  our  generation  who  could 
have,  in  one  short  address,  molded  into  enthusiastic 
Christian  unity  a  company  of  scholarly,  ordinarily 
undemonstrative,  men,  who  had  become  sharply 
divided  along  lines  of  deepest  convictions  and  in  the 
hours  when  prejudice  was  most  profound."1 


1  From  an  Unpublished  Letter,  May  15,  1893. 


CHAPTER   XXXV. 

IN   LABORS   MORE   ABUNDANT. 

Mr.  Beecher  remained  during  the  twenty-one  years 
which  followed  the  Cleveland  episode  a  large  and 
potent  factor  in  American  political  and  religious  life. 
It  cannot  be  said,  however,  with  truth  that  his  influ- 
ence continually  increased,  with  no  serious  interrup- 
tions, as  the  years  went  by.  He  was  preeminently 
fitted  for  the  great  work  that  closed  with  the  de- 
struction of  American  slavery.  He  had  great  quali- 
fications, springing  largely  from  his  broad  and 
wholesome  moral  nature,  for  the  wise  and  restraining 
guidance  of  the  victorious  North.  His  robust  com- 
mon sense  kept  him  from  making  egregious  mistakes 
during  the  years  when  financial  difficulties  were  up- 
permost. Unlike  Wendell  Phillips,  he  was  not  swept 
into  the  greenback  heresy. 

But  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  Mr. 
Beecher  did  not  count  for  a  supreme  reformatory 
force  in  American  life.  Of  course  he  always  stood 
firm  and  strong  for  honesty  and  purity  in  national 
and  municipal  government,  but  having  expended  tire 
immense  force  of  his  reformatory  energies  in  that 
gigantic  moral  conflict  which  culminated  in  the  Civil 
War,  he  never  appeared,  except  in  his  pulpit,  in  all  his 


364  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

greatness  during  the  years  which  followed  the  death 
of  slavery. 

As  a  preacher  he  was  probably  never  so  great,  his 
mind  was  never  so  fertile,  his  wisdom,  adaptation,  and 
power  in  expression  were  never  so  wonderful,  as  in  the 
years  extending  from  1865  to  1877.  The  evolution  of 
his  mind  resulted  in  several  important  theological 
changes,  but  Mr.  Beecher's  efforts  in  theological  re- 
form, although  worthy  of  attentive  study,  and 
doubtless  to  a  degree  useful,  did  not  contribute 
largely  to  his  general  repute.  He  seemed  hasty,  care- 
less, and  extravagant. 

It  may  be  too  early  to  estimate  aright  what  he  did 
as  a  theological  reformer,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  his 
work  was  not  all  pure  gold.  He  certainly  offended 
many,  whom  a  gentler  and  more  careful  treatment 
would  have  enlightened.  He  frequently  made  the 
mistake  of  contributing  heat  where  light  would  have 
been  more  helpful,  and  he  sometimes  offered  the 
illumination  of  scientific  light  where  a  little  of  his 
old-time  heat  would  have  proved  more  effective. 

Mr.  Beecher  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life 
remained  the  foremost  preacher  of  Christendom. 
Abounding  in  wisdom,  and  fertile  in  fancy,  loving  in 
speech,  and  lofty  in  spirit,  he  continued  his  expositions 
of  Divine  truth;  but  though  he  was  unequaled  as  a 
reformer  in  the  anti-slavery  crusade,  the  pulpit 
Jupiter  was  no  great  figure  in  the  temperance  fight  in 
America.  The  temperance  reform,  which  is  funda- 
mental to  all  reforms,  swept  on  without  his  making 
any  supreme  contributions  of  force  and  wise  direc- 
tion. In  his  two  sermons,  published  by  the  National 
Temperance  Society, — "  Common   Sense   for  Young 


IN    LABORS   MORE  ABUNDANT.  365 

Men  "  and  "  Love  and  Liberty  " — he  teaches  much 
wholesome  truth,  but  he  never  entered  into  the  tem- 
perance crusade,  certainly  not  in  his  later  years,  with 
the  vigor  and  enthusiasm  which  characterized  the 
supreme  efforts  of  his  life.  In  temperance  annals 
Wendell  Phillips,  Neal  Dow,  John  B.  Gough,  Joseph 
Cook,  Canon  Farrar,  Thedore  L.  Cuyler,  Francis 
Murphy,  and  Miss  Frances  E.  Willard  are  greater 
names  than  his. 

He  was  a  powerful  advocate  of  woman-suffrage, 
but  Mr.  Beecher  was  not  eminent,  according  to  the 
splendor  of  his  genius,  in  those  questions  of  Capital 
and  Labor  which  involve  such  vital  interests.  To 
younger  Americans,  Lyman  Abbott,  Joseph  Cook, 
Washington  Gladden,  Richard  T.  Ely,  and  many  be- 
sides was  left  the  fruitful  and  adequate  study  and 
setting  forth  of  that  advancing  revolution,  which,  if 
this  Christian  spirit  is  to  rule,  will  substitute  cooper- 
ation for  competition  in  the  industrial  world.  And 
yet,  in  one  sermon,  that  on  Capital  and  Labor,  deliv- 
ered on  March  28,  1886,  he  unfolded  with  rare,  com- 
prehensive wisdom  the  fundamental  Christian  laws 
of  this  industrial  revolution.  "  I  speak  the  very  heart 
of  the  Gospel  when  I  say  that  Christianity  in  our  day 
looks  to  the  bottom  rather  than  to  the  top."  ' 

The  last  thirteen  years  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life  were 
overclouded  by  a  great  scandal  which  involved  his 
character,  reputation,  and  influence.  The  grandeur  of 
his  manhood,  and  its  conspicuous  defects  as  well,  be- 
came prominent  during  that  almost  unparalleled 
trial.     Seen  at  a  distance  of  fifty  years,  perhaps  this 


1  The  Brooklyn  Magazine,  April,  1886,  p.  27. 


366  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

much-enduring  man  who  maintained  the  sweetness 
and  integrity  of  his  soul  through  that  long  and 
agonizing  ordeal,  will  appear  greater  even  than  the 
pulpit  orator  who  made  the  platform  of  Plymouth 
Church  a  turning-point  in  history  and  a  starting- 
point  for  humanity's  better  future. 

The  days  of  the  greatest  prosperity  for  Plymouth 
Church  were  perhaps  the  twelve  years  which  followed 
the  war,  and  the  culminating  point  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
career,  so  far  as  popular  applause  is  concerned,  may 
be  said  to  have  been  the  "  Silver  Wedding,  "  the 
week  of  Jubilee,  in  October,  1872.  The  history  of 
those  twenty-five  years  included  Mr.  Beecher's  great- 
est work  as  a  reformer  and  the  achievement  of  his 
world-wide  fame  and  influence  as  a  preacher.  "His 
sermons  were  copied  weekly  by  hundreds  of  papers 
throughout  the  world,  and  thus  found  their  way  to 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  firesides,  where  other- 
wise they  would  never  have  been  known.  " '  These 
sermons  were  translated  into  French,  Spanish,  Ger- 
man, and  Italian,  and,  "  from  his  pulpit  went  forth 
words  of  cheer,  of  hope  and  love,  that  lifted  up  weary 
hearts,  that  infused  new  life  in  the  despairing,  that 
shed  a  new  light  upon  spirits  that  had  lived  in  the 
darkness  of  sin,  throughout  all  the  civilized  globe.  "  a 

Before  the  "  Silver  Wedding,"  Mr.  Beecher  had 
built  up  a  happy  and  harmonious  Church  organiza- 
tion with  nearly  three  thousand  members,  and  had 
helped  to  nurse  into  vigorous  life  the  three  fruitful 
Sunday-schools — Plymouth,  Bethel  and  Mayflower — 


1  T.  J.  Ellinwood  in  the  Phonographic  World,  April,  18S7. 
9  "  Biography  " — Page  479, 


IN    LABORS    MORE  ABUNDANT.  367 

wherein  about  three  thousand  pupils  were  taught  and 
trained. 

Mr.  Beecher  had  already  written  his  only  novel — 
"  Norwood  " — a  tale  of  village  life  in  New  England. 
He  had  been  a  contributor  to  the  New  York  Ledger, 
and  his  one  story  was  published  in  that  paper  in  1867, 
the  owner  of  the  paper  giving  him  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  for  it.  Mr.  Beecher  confesses  that 
if  it  had  not  been  for  Mr.  Robert  Bonner,  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  Ledger,  "  Norwood  "  would  never  have 
been  written.  He  was  not  a  great  reader  of  fiction, 
and  was  unfamiliar  "  with  the  mystery  of  their  con- 
struction." The  proposition  to  write  a  novel  was 
almost  as  startling  as  "  a  request  to  carve  a  statue  or 
build  a  man  of-war." 

But  Mi  Beecher  had  a  wide  knowledge  of  life 
in  New  England  as  well  as  a  wide  understanding 
of  human  nature  in  general.  Besides,  he  had  a  habit 
"  of  looking  upon  men  as  the  children  of  God  and 
heirs  of  immortality  "  so  that  all  human  life  had 
dignity  in  his  eyes.  These  considerations  came  to 
his  aid  and  relief,  and  the  result  was  a  decision  to 
write  the  book  which  his  friend  so  strongly  urged 
him  to  undertake. 

"Norwood  "  has  no  plot  worth  mentioning.  Many 
school-girls  of  to-day  are  able  to  write  what  is  artisti- 
cally a  better  story.  But  "  Norwood  "  is  filled  with 
splendid  "  Beecherisms":  it  is  starred  with  passages 
that  shine  with  a  noble  and  lasting  beauty.  It  has 
wit  and  humor  enough  to  make  a  great  reputation 
for  smaller  men  and  it  is  immensely  helpful  to  those 
who  wish  to  know  New  England  or  to  learn  of  the 
training,   opinions  and  personal   peculiarities  of  one 


368  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  New  England's  greatest  sons — Henry  Ward 
Beecher. 

Before  the  "Silver  Wedding"  he  had  also  written 
the  first  volume  of  his  Life  of  Jesus,  the  Christ.  He 
undertook  this  "in  the  hope  of  inspiring  a  deeper 
interest  in  the  noble  Personage  of  whom  those  match- 
less histories,  the  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
and  John,  are  the  chief  authentic  memorials.  I  have 
endeavored  to  present  scenes  that  occurred  two 
thousand  years  ago  as  they  would  appear  to  modern 
eyes  if  the  events  had  taken  place  in  our  day."  ' 

Horace  Greeley  who  had  so  keen  and  accurate  a 
knowledge  of  the  American  common  people,  ex- 
pressed the  confident  opinion  that  five  hundred  thou- 
sand copies  of  the  book  would  be  sold.  The  "  scandal " 
which  soon  followed  the  issue  of  the  first  volume  led 
to  the  suspension  of  the  publication.  But  for  that 
direful  event,  such  were  Mr.  Beecher's  influence  and 
reputation  at  that  time,  the  work  would  probably 
have  proved  as  great  a  literary  success  as  General 
Grant's  Memoirs. 

Mr.  Beecher,  while  not  equipped  with  the  wide 
and  special  learning  which  Farrar,  Geikie,  Eder- 
sheim,  and  many  others  have  brought  to  the  elucida- 
tion of  the  one  Supreme  Life,  possessed  other  emi- 
nent qualities  for  setting  vividly  before  men  the 
World's  Redeemer.  He  proposed  to  himself  not  a 
controversial  life,  but  such  a  portrayal  of  the  Son  of 
God  as  would  remove  the  grounds  for  the  common 
objections  to  the  Gospel  histories.  "Writing  in  full 
sympathy   with   the  Gospels  as  authentic  historical 


1  Preface  to  the  "  Life  of  Christ." 


IN    LABORS    MORE  ABUNDANT.  369 

documents,  and  with  the  nature  and  teachings  of  the 
great  Personage  whom  they  describe,  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  say  that  I  have  not  attempted  to  show 
the  world  what  Matthew  and  John  ought  to  have 
heard  and  seen  but  did  not;  nor  what  things  they  did 
not  see  or  hear,  but  in  their  simplicity  believed  they 
did.  In  short,  I  have  not  invented  a  Life  of  Jesus  to 
suit  the  critical  philosophy  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. "  ' 

Through  all  his  life,  whatever  theological  changes 
occurred  in  regard  to  Christian  philosophy  or  inter- 
pretations of  the  Scriptures,  Mr.  Beecher  always 
stood  firm  on  the  basis  of  historic  Christianity  as  set 
forth  in  the  Apostles'  Creed.  "  The  miraculous  ele- 
ment," he  believed,  "  constitutes  the  very  nerve-system 
of  the  Gospel.  To  withdraw  it  from  credence  is  to 
leave  the  Gospel  history  a  mere  shapeless  mass  of 
pulp.  " 

"  That  Christ  should  be  the  center  and  active  cause 
of  such  stupendous  imposture,  on  the  supposition 
that  miracles  were  but  deceptions,  shocks  the  moral 
feeling  of  those  even  who  disbelieve  His  divinity."* 

No  other  of  the  modern  biographers  of  Jesus  has 
written  anything  more  beautiful  than  the  "  Overture 
of  Angels,"  the  second  chapter  of  Mr.  Beecher's  first 
volume.  A  score  of  pages  might  here  be  reproduced 
from  this  book  enriched  with  some  of  the  choicest 
spiritual  thoughts  in  the  English  language.  It  is 
doubtful  if  Mr.  Beecher's  marvelous  power  with 
words  and  his  equally  wonderful  insight  into  truth 
can  anywhere  else  be  seen  to  better  advantage  than  in 

1  Preface,  p.  v.     2  "  Life  of  Jesus,  the  Christ,"  pp.  9,  10. 
24 


37<3  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

the  first  volume  of  the  "  Life  of  Christ."  The  closing 
passage  which  follows  the  account  of  Christ's  para- 
bolic preaching  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  may  serve  as  a 
good  illustration  of  Mr.  Beecher's  great  power  with 
words. 

"  The  Voice  ceased.  The  crowd  disappeared.  The 
light  that  had  sparkled  along  the  waters  and  fired 
the  distant  hills  went  out.  Twilight  came  on;  the 
evening  winds  whispered  among  the  rustling  reeds, 
and  the  ripples  gurgling  upon  the  beach,  answered 
them  in  liquid  echoes.  The  boom  of  the  solitary  bit- 
tern came  over  the  waters,  and  now  and  then,  as 
darkness  fell  upon  the  lake,  the  call  of  the  fishermen, 
at  their  night-toil.  The  crowd  dispersed.  The  world 
received  its  own  again.  With  darkness  came  forget- 
fulness,  leaving  but  a  faint  memory  of  the  Voice,  or 
of  its  teachings,  as  of  a  wind  whispering  among 
the  fickle  reeds.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  throng,  like 
the  last  rays  of  the  sun,  died  out:  and  their  hearts, 
like  the  sea,  again  sent  incessant  desires  murmuring 
and  complaining  to  the  shore.  " 

In  January,  1870,  Mr.  Beecher  assumed  control  of 
the  Christian  Union  and  that  paper  achieved  almost 
immediately  an  immense  circulation  and  seemed 
likely  to  become  at  a  bound  the  leading  Christian 
journal  of  America.  In  his  salutatory  he  said:  "  Be- 
lieving that  at  heart  there  is  in  common  a  Divine 
Life  in  all  sects,  we  seek  to  be  in  sympathy  with 
them  in  the  things  that  are  nearest  to  Divine  love 
and  purity:  and  we  shall  assert  in  all  other  things — 
organizations,  policies,  philosophies — the  liberty  of 
all  Churches  to  have  their  own  way  according  to 
the  best  light  of  an   instructed  conscience,  and   also 


IN    LABORS    MORE  ABUNDANT.  371 

we  shall  defend  in  all  the  utmost  liberty  of  dissent; 
thus  seeking  for  a  unity  of  the  Spirit  while  we  shall 
regard  without  alarm  a  diversity  of  manifestations.  " 
In  1871,  Henry  W.  Sage,  of  Brooklyn,  one  of  the 
leading  members  of  the  Plymouth  congregation, 
founded  the  Lyman  Beecher  Lectureship  of  Preach- 
ing for  the  Divinity  School  of  Yale  College.  Early 
in  1872  Mr.  Beecher  gave  his  first  course  of  twelve 
lectures  on  this  foundation.  After  hearing  one  of 
these  lectures,  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  said:  "  If  I  had 
heard  such  talk  as  that  before  I  began  to  preach 
it  would  have  made  a  better  preacher  of  me." 
Many  men  now  living  remember  these  marvelous 
discourses  and  the  delivery  of  them  as  notable  events 
in  their  lives.  At  the  close  of  the  first  course,  Pro- 
fessors Bacon,  Harris,  Day,  Hoppin,  Fisher,  and 
Dwight,  had  written  to  him  a  highly  commendatory 
letter  in  which  they  said  of  these  addresses:  "  We 
value  them  for  the  views  which  they  give  of  elo- 
quence in  general,  and  of  that  eloquence  in  particu- 
lar which  seeks  to  save  men  by  the  exposition  and 
application  of  the  Gospel.  We  value  them  for  the 
inspiring  and  stimulating  effect  on  the  hearers  and 
the  high  ideals  which  they  hold  up  for  ministers  and 
students  for  the  ministry.  "  Prof.  Hoppin  has  called 
Mr.  Beecher  "an  epoch-making  man."  The  "Yale 
Lectures  on  Preaching"  reveal  the  sources  of  this 
epoch-making  power. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI. 

SUNSHINE    BEFORE    THE    STORM. 

Fresh  from  all  the  manifold  victories  which  he  had 
achieved  as  preacher,  reformer,  patriot,  author,  lect- 
urer, and  editor,  Mr.  Beecher  entered  with  his  people 
into  the  joys  of  the  "  Silver- Wedding"  services. 
There  were  secret  sorrows  eating  at  his  heart  even 
then.  Some  of  his  friends  afterwards  said  that  it 
seemed  as  if  God  was  to  give  an  unequaled  trial  to  His 
servant  lest  in  some  way  he  should  become  puffed  up 
on  account  of  his  unequaled  achievements.  Troubles 
had  been  brewing  which  he  knew  were  liable  to  bring 
results  of  great  seriousness  to  himself  and  his  people. 
He  carried  all  through  that  great  week  of  jubilee  a 
brave  and  thankful  heart.  Personal  glorification  he 
loathed.  He  meant  to  make  the  celebration  a  rehearsal 
of  what  the  Lord  had  done  through  his  people,  of 
what  the  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ  had  wrought 
through  that  great  Christian  family  which  for  twenty- 
five  years  he  had  been  gathering  about  him. 

It  is  delightful  to  read  the  picturesque  accounts 
which  have  been  given  us  of  that  memorable  week  ; 
how  Monday  morning,  at  an  early  prayer-meeting, 
words  of  devout  thanks  were  spoken,  and  the  prayer- 
ful spirit  which  had  characterized  the  beginning  of 
Plymouth  Church  was  made  gloriously  evident ;  how 


SUNSHINE    BEFORE    THE   STORM.  373 

in  the  afternoon  of  Monday  a  great  procession  of 
children  filed  by  the  pastor's  door-step,  and  each  one 
cast  a  flower  at  his  feet  ;  and  how,  at  the  close  of  the 
parade,  the  scholars  repaired  to  the  beautifully-deco- 
rated church  and,  with  music  by  the  United  States 
Marine  Band,  with  prayer,  with  singing,  and  with  a 
noble  address  by  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Martyn  Scudder, 
the  Children's  Day  was  ended. 

We  read  with  interest  of  the  morning  prayer-meet- 
ing on  Tuesday.  It  was  Officers'  and  Teachers'  Day 
and  in  the  evening  Mr.  Bell,  Mr.  Elwell,  Mr. 
Bowen,  Mr.  Andrew  A.  Smith,  Dr.  H.  E.  Morrill,  and 
others,  recalled  events  in  the  history  of  the  three  Sun- 
day-schools. 

Wednesday,  or  Members'  Day,  was  the  day  of  broth- 
erhood, which  recalled  that  for  twenty-five  years  no 
meeting  had  ever  been  summoned  to  settle  a  quarrel 
in  Plymouth  Church.  Captain  Duncan  spoke  of  the 
glorious  revival  of  1857-8,  and  Mr.  Beecher  brought 
to  mind  with  affectionate  gratitude  the  character  and 
services  of  the  older  members,  Edward  Corning, 
"Brother  Burgess,"  Benjamin  Flanders, Captain  Chase, 
and  Mr.  Atkinson.  In  the  evening  exercises  there 
was  an  elaborate  musical  programme.  Mr.  Beecher 
gave  pleasant  reminiscences,  and  Mr.  Cutter  and  Mr 
Bowen  entered  carefully  into  the  earlier  and  later  his-  X 
tory  of  the  church.  Among  other  things  Mr.  Bowen 
said  :  "  During  the  late  war,  no  Church,  or  congre- 
gation, or  minister,  did  more  than  Plymouth  Church 
and  Mr.  Beecher  toward  the  overthrow  of  the  rebel- 
lion, by  contributions  of  men  and  money."  Letters 
from  Mr.  John  T.  Howard,  then  a  resident  of  Chicago, 
from  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell,  from  "  An  Aged  Member," 


374  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

and  from  a  "  Young  Member,"  added  to  the  interest 
of  the  happy  evening. 

Thursday  was  Historical  Day.  John  Zundel,  for 
more  than  twenty  years  the  organist  of  the  church, 
told  of  the  great  influence  which  Mr.  Beecher  had 
exerted  in  promoting  good  church  music,  and  among 
other  things  he  said:  "Twenty-five  years  ago,  I 
think  God  sent  me  from  my  home  to  Brooklyn,  and  I 
thank  Him  to-day  that  ever  he  sent  me  here.  When 
I  came  here,  though  I  was  a  member  of  the  church,  I 
knew  nothing  of  my  Saviour.  When  I  came,  though 
I  had  a  belief  in  Heaven,  I  knew  nothing  about  it  in 
my  heart.  Plymouth  Church  to  me  is  the  thing  that 
has  made  me  to  know  my  Saviour.  Plymouth 
Church  to  me  is  the  thing  that  opened  heaven, 
and  let  me  see  in.  And  although  I  cannot  find 
words  to  speak,  this  morning,  I  do  want  you  all 
to  believe  that  the  reason  I  love  Plymouth  Church 
so  much,  and  the  reason  I  love  that  man  so  much,  is 
because  through  her  and  through  him  I  came  to  know 
my  blessed  Saviour."  ' 

At  the  crowded  evening  service  which  was  attended 
by  Dr.  Cuyler,  Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  Dr.  Budington, 
and  Dr.  Storrs,  Mr.  Beecher  gave  the  historical 
address  from  which  frequent  quotation  has  been  made 
in  this  volume.  And  this  was  followed  by  an  address 
of  congratulation  from  Dr.  Storrs  of  the  Church  of 
the  Pilgrims  Mr.  Beecher's  words  probably  never 
eclipsed  the  splendid  power  of  this  memorable  speech 
of  his  friend,  which  abounded  with  fire  and  fun,  with 
discriminating  analyses  of  Mr.  Beecher's  power,  with 


*"  Plymouth  Church  Silver  Wedding,"  p.  57. 


SUNSHINE    BEFORE    THE    STORM.  375 

noble  tributes  to  his  usefulness,  and  with  passages  so 
full  of  generous  feeling  and  exalted  sentiment,  that 
fhey  have  lived  in  the  memories  of  thousands.  The 
closing  paragraphs  have  often  been  published,  and 
critics  have  justly  deemed  them  among  the  most 
remarkable  sentences  in  the  history  of  superb  and 
stately  eloquence.  Every  Life  of  Mr.  Beecher  should 
include  the  magnificent  closing  passage: 

"At  any  rate,  we  have  stood  side  by  side  in  all  these 
years  and  they  have  been  wonderful  and  eventful 
years. 

"  '  Our  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord, 
When  he  loosed  the   fateful  lightnings  of   His  terrible  swift 

sword, 
And  His  truth  went  marching  on  ! ' 

"We  have  differed  many  times,  but  two  men  so 
unlike  never  stood  side  by  side  with  each  other  for  so 
long  a  time,  in  more  perfect  harmony,  without  a  jeal- 
ousy or  a  jar  !  Though  we  have  differed  in  opinion, 
we  have  never  differed  in  feeling.  We  have  walked 
to  the  graves  of  friends  in  company.  We  have  sat  at 
the  table  of  our  Lord  in  company.  He  knows,  as  he 
has  said,  that  when  other  voices  were  loud  and  fierce 
in  hostility  to  him,  mine  never  joined  them.  When 
other  pens  wrote  his  name,  dropping  gall  and  venom 
as  they  wrote  it,  my  pen  never  touched  the  paper 
except  in  honor  and  admiration  of  him.  And  I  know 
that  whenever  I  have  wanted  counsel  or  courage  given 
me  from  others,  he  has  always  been  ready,  from  the 
overflowing  surplus  of  his  surcharged  mind,  to  give 
them  to  me. 

"  So  we  have  stood  side  by  side — blessed  be  God! — 


376  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

in  no  spirit  but  of  fraternal  love,  for  that  long  space 
of  twenty-five  years,  which  began  with  the  Right 
Hand  of  Fellowship  then,  and  closes  before  you  here* 
to-night. 

"  I  am  not  here,  my  friend,  to  repeat  the  service 
which  then  I  performed.  It  would  be  superfluous. 
When  I  think  of  the  great  assemblies  that  have  surged 
and  thronged  around  this  platform  ;  when  I  think  of 
the  influences  that  have  gone  out  from  this  pulpit 
into  all  the  earth,  I  feel  that  less  than  almost  any 
other  man  on  earth  does  he  need  the  assurance  of 
fellowship  from  any  but  the  Son  of  God  !  But  I  am 
here  to-night  for  another  and  different  service.  On 
behalf  of  you  who  tarry,  and  those  who  have  ascended 
from  this  congregation  ;  on  behalf  of  Christians  of 
every  name  throughout  our  city,  who  have  had  such 
joy  and  pride  in  him,  and  the  name  of  whose  town 
has,  by  him,  been  made  famous  in  the  earth  ;  on  behalf 
of  all  our  Churches  now  growing  to  be  an  army  ;  on 
behalf  of  those  in  every  part  of  our  land  who  have 
never  seen  his  face  or  heard  his  voice,  but  who  have 
read  and  loved  his  sermons,  and  been  quickened  and 
blessed  by  them  ;  on  behalf  of  the  great  multitudes 
who  have  gone  up  from  every  land  which  his  sermons 
have  reached,  never  having  touched  his  hand  on  earth, 
but  waiting  to  greet  him  by  and  by  ;  I  am  here  to- 
night to  give  him  the  Right  Hand  of  Congratulation 
on  the  closing  of  this  twenty-fifth  year  of  his  ministry, 
and  to  say :  God  be  praised  for  all  the  work  that 
you  have  done  here  !  God  be  praised  for  the  generous 
gifts  which  He  has  showered  upon  you,  and  the  gener- 
ous use  you  have  made  of  them,  here  and  elsewhere, 
and  everywhere  in  the  land !  God  give  you  many  happy 


SUNSHINE  BEFORE  THE  STORM.         377 

and  glorious  years  of  work  and  joy  still  to  come  in  your 
ministry  on  earth  !  May  your  soul,  as  the  years  go  on, 
be  whitened  more  and  more,  in  the  radiance  of  God's 
light,  and  in  the  sunshine  of  His  love  !  And,  when  the 
end  comes — as  it  will — may  the  gates  of  pearl  swing 
inward  for  your  entrance,  before  the  hands  of  those 
who  have  gone  up  before  you,  and  who  now  wait  to 
welcome  you  thither  !  and  then  may  there  open  to 
you  that  vast  and  bright  Eternity — all  vivid  with  God's 
love — in  which  an  instant  vision  shall  be  perfect  joy, 
and  an  immortal  labor  shall  be  your  immortal  rest  !  " 

It  is  recorded  that  the  eloquence  of  this  closing 
passage  was  indescribable,  and  when,  at  the  conclu- 
sion, Mr.  Beecher  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  and 
with  tears,  arose,  and  placing  his  hand  on  Dr.  Storrs's 
shoulder,  kissed  him  upon  the  cheek,  "  the  congre- 
gation sat  for  a  moment  breathless  and  enraptured 
at  this  simple  and  beautiful  action.  Then  there 
broke  forth  from  them  such  a  burst  of  applause  as 
never  before  was  heard  in  an  ecclesiastical  edifice." 

Rev.  Dr.  Budington  was  introduced  to  make  the 
closing  address,  but  with  perfect  good  taste  excused 
himself  saying:  "lam  satisfied  that  this  service  is 
concluded  as  only  God's  Spirit  could  conclude  it, 
and  as  your  hearts,  beating  with  mine,  would  have  it 
concluded."  Upon  this  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "We 
will  sing  then,  'Jesus,  Lover  of  my  Soul,'  the 
sweetest  hymn  that  ever  was  written  in  the  English 
language,  the  deepest,  the  most  imploring,  and  the 
most  comforting."  He  well  knew  what  it  was  to  hide 
on  the  bosom  of  his  Saviour,  and  perhaps  he  also 
knew  that  the  tempest  was  very  near  and  that  the 
billows  of  sorrow  would  soon  engulf  him. 


378  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

Friday,  October  nth,  was  the  closing  day.  At 
the  morning  meeting,  Rev.  Lyman  Abbott  offered 
prayer  and  remarks  were  made  by  Dr.  Edward 
Beecher,  Maj.  J.  B.  Merwin,  and  Rossiter  W.  Ray- 
mond. There  is  something  pathetic,  when  we  re- 
member what  was  soon  to  follow  in  one  sen- 
tence of  Mr.  Raymond's  address.  "  It  affords  me 
pleasure  to  rise  and  bear  testimony  to  this  crowning 
beauty  of  Plymouth  Church,  the  way  in  which  her 
members  stand  by  one  another  in  times  of  trouble. 
It  does  not  hurt  the  music  of  this  jubilee  week  to 
have  a  little  minor  chord  in  it :  and  I  feel  as 
though  it  was  my  right  and  privilege  to  contribute 
this  one  element."  And  Mr.  Beecher  seems  almost 
prophetic:  "  We  are  not  far  from  home.  We  have 
but  little  time  left.  Heaven  is  real.  Christ  is  real. 
God  is  real.  Take  heart,  brethren.  Lift  up  stalwart 
shoulders  under  your  burdens,  and  go  out  again  to 
face  temptation,  and  to  overcome  it.  It  is  but  a  little 
while  before  we  will  turn,  as  the  brethren  who  have 
gone  before  us  have  turned,  and  look  over  all  the 
way  in  which  God  hath  led  us,  and  then  lift  up  our 
songs  of  rejoicing,  which  shall  begin  and  never 
cease.  " 

The  concluding  evening  service  was  signalized  by 
the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Among  other 
things  Mr.  Beecher  said:  "Although  I  was  a  child 
of  Christian  parents,  and  had  been  taught  in  a  cer- 
tain way  to  respect  Christ,  it  was  long  after  I  had 
become  a  member  of  the  Church,  long  after  I  had 
finished  my  college  course,  and  two  years,  I  think  it 
must  have  been,  after  I  entered  the  theological  semi- 
nary, that  I  found  Christ.     He  dawned  upon  me  as  a 


SUNSHINE    BEFORE   THE    STORM.  379 

star;  but  it  was  such  a  star  as  one  beholds  on  a 
stormy  sea,  in  a  cloudy  night.  Taking  observations 
I  caught  it,  though  it  was  hid:  and  it  guided  me." 

Dr.  Edward  Beecher  and  Dr.  William  M.  Taylor,  of 
the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  spoke  tenderly  of  what 
Christ  had  been  to  them.  Rev.  Charles  M.  Morton, 
of  the  Bethel,  Capt.  C.  C.  Duncan,  and  Rev.  Lyman 
Abbott  told  of  what  Christ  had  wrought  in  their 
lives.  Mr.  Beecher  administered  the  Communion  to 
two  thousand  believers,  and,  in  closing  the  service, 
he  said  among  other  things,  in  speaking  of  the  in- 
fluence of  the  memorable  week:  "You  will  cleanse 
your  hearts  more  entirely  of  every  form  of  uncharit- 
ableness,  and  unkindness  and  animosity;  you  will 
yourselves  be  disposed,  more  than  ever,  to  bear  one 
another's  burdens.  "  "  Let  us  not  forget  how  large  a 
part  of  the  world  lies  a  wilderness,  without  an  occu- 
pant who  knows  Christ;  and  let  our  prayers  go  up, 
without  ceasing,  that  God  will  send  forth  into  all  the 
earth  those  same  benign  influences  which  have  re- 
deemed us. " 

The  closing  hymn: — 

"  When  I  survey  the  wondrous  cross, 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died," 

lifted  all  hearts  to  the  Supreme  Sufferer,  Whose  di- 
vine, amazing  love  had  been  the  constraining  and  il- 
luminating power  in  the  twenty-five  years  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  almost  matchless  ministry. 

As  the  thousands  passed  out  of  Plymouth  Church 
that  night  they  little  realized,  or  even  dreamed,  that 
they  had  been  looking  upon  one  who  was  soon  to 
have  his  Gethsemane  and  his  Calvary. 


CHAPTER    XXXVI  I. 

THE    LONG    DARKNESS. 

While  the  next  generation  will  not  care  to  possess 
any  full  knowledge  of  the  details,  which  are  still  fresh 
in  many  minds,  of  the  events  about  to  be  narrated,  the 
world  will  long  be  eager  to  know  how  Mr.  Beecher 
bore  himself  on  the  "  Cross  of  Slander,"  and  what 
were  the  final  estimates  of  the  fair-minded  with  re- 
gard to  his  innocency. 

It  is  very  humiliating  for  the  friends  of  so  great  a 
man  to  find  him  in  such  company  as  the  student  of 
this  part  of  his  career  discovers  about  him.  It  is 
almost  equally  humiliating  to  see  how  Mr.  Beecher's 
noble  qualities,  carried  to  excess,  were  indirectly  the 
means  of  bringing  excruciating  sorrow  upon  him  and 
wide-wasting  suffering  upon  millions  besides.  It  is 
almost  sickening  to  learn  that  one  who  had  rendered 
the  Church  and  humanity  such  services  should  have 
his  name  so  intimately  associated  with  a  scandal 
which  for  years  occupied  the  attention  of  the  world, 
and  did  much  to  lower  the  moral  tone  of  many  inno- 
cent households. 

The  late  Dr.  Peabody,  of  Harvard  University,  has 
intimated  that  even  an  archangel's  plumes  would  have 
been  scorched  in  the  company  and  situations  in 
which  Mr.  Beecher  was  led  to  place  himself.     That  so 


THE   LONG   DARKNESS.  38 1 

good  a  man  should  have  been  so  humiliated  is  a  mys- 
tery. But  that  any  man  should  have  endured  the 
fires  which  surrounded  Mr.  Beecher  and  have  come 
forth  so  radiant,  so  pure,  so  self-respecting,  and  so 
widely  trusted  and  beloved,  is  a  moral  miracle,  the 
parallel  of  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find. 

Good  men  of  characteristics  different  from  Mr. 
Beecher's  might  never  have  been  involved  so  seriously 
in  the  complications  which  cast  a  shadow  over  his 
good  name,  but  probably  no  other  minister  in  America 
could  have  lived  and  maintained  his  great  position 
and  influence  after  having  passed  through  such  a 
scandal.  In  giving  a  rapid  account  of  this  part  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  life,  Joseph  Cook  calls  attention  to  these 
facts:  "  His  chief  accusers  were  wretches  or  weather- 
vanes  beneath  contempt.  They  have  dropped  from 
public  sight.  He  went  through  a  series  of  trials  and 
came  out,  on  the  whole,  victoriously.  He  was  tried 
by  his  Church  and  acquitted.  He  was  tried  by  a 
court,  and  acquitted  by  a  divided  jury  ;  and  of  the 
three  of  the  twelve  jurymen  who  voted  against  him, 
two  had  voted  on  both  sides.  He  was  tried,  or  was 
threatened  with  a  trial,  in  another  court  ;  but  the 
prosecutor  withdrew  from  the  trial  when  Mr.  Beecher 
faced  him.  His  case  was  examined  into  by  a  renowned 
Council  which  unanimously  pronounced  entire  con- 
fidence in  him."  ' 

Theodore  Tilton,  the  principal  accuser  of  Mr. 
Beecher,  was  a  member  of  Plymouth  Church,  as  was 
also  Mrs.  Tilton.  This  brilliant  egotist  claimed  that 
he  owed  almost  everything   to  Mr.    Beecher.     "  You 


'"Boston   Monday  Lecture,"  1888,  p.  146. 


382  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

were  my  minister,  teacher,  father,  brother,  friend, 
companion.     The  debt  I  owe  you  I  can  never  repay." 

Through  Mr.  Beecher's  friendly  influence  Tilton 
became,  in  1861,  assistant  editor  of  The  Independent. 
In  1863  Tilton  was  given  the  entire  editorial  super- 
vision of  that  paper.  In  1865  he  became  editor-in- 
chief,  while  Mr.  Beecher  remained  a  contributor  of 
Star  articles.  In  1866,  after  the  famous  Cleveland  let- 
ters, Tilton's  attacks  upon  his  old  friend  were  so 
violent  that  Mr.  Beecher  withdrew  from  any  connec- 
tion with  The  Independent. 

Tilton  soon  began  to  display  his  almost  unparal- 
leled conceit,  and  at  the  same  time  to  ventilate  his 
extremely  advanced  ideas  on  religious,  social,  and 
other  topics.  In  1869,  The  Christian  Union  was 
organized  and  the  following  year  Mr.  Beecher  took 
control  of  this  paper.  In  December,  1870,  the  owner 
of  The  Independent  dismissed  Tilton  from  the  editor- 
ship of  that  paper  which  had  suffered  greatly  from 
the  withdrawal  of  Mr.  Beecher  and  the  immense  pros- 
perity of  The  Christian  Union.  Tilton  believed  that 
his  dismissal  was  due  to  the  hostile  influence  of  Mr. 
Beecher.  Many  stories  of  Tilton's  bad  life  were 
poured  into  the  ears  of  the  proprietor  of  The  Inde- 
pendent. Out  of  the  business  troubles,  here  faintly 
indicated,  came  what  has  been  called  the  "  Con- 
spiracy," the  purpose  of  which  was  to  ruin  the  pas- 
tor of  Plymouth  Church. 

Tilton,  by  his  follies,  had  become  "  bankrupt  in 
reputation,  in  occupation,  and  in  resources."  "  Find- 
ing his  own  morality  impeached,  he  adopted  the 
peculiar  defense  of  darkly  insinuating  that  Mr. 
Beecher  was  open  to  suspicion,  and  finally  formed  a 


THE    LONG    DARKNESS.  383 

determination  to  drive  him  from  his  pulpit  and  from 
the  city  by  means  of  an  accusation  of  some  vaguely 
defined  offense  to  Mr.  Tilton's  own  family." 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  familiar  visitor  at  the  Tilton 
household,  and  in  July,  1870,  when  Mrs.  Tilton  was 
sick,  he  made  his  last  visit  to  her  before  grave  troubles 
broke  out  in  the  family.  In  December,  1870,  Mr. 
Beecher  became  aware  of  Mrs.  Tilton's  great  suffer- 
ing on  account  of  the  ill  treatment  of  her  husband. 
After  an  interview  with  Mrs.  Tilton,  Mrs.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  expressed  her  extreme  indignation  toward 
Tilton,  and  declared  that  "  no  consideration  on  earth 
would  induce  her  to  remain  an  hour  with  a  man  who 
had  treated  her  with  a  hundredth  part  of  such  insult 
and  cruelty."  Mr.  Beecher  strongly  inclined  to  his 
wife's  view  with  regard  to  the  proper  steps  to  be 
taken.  That  view  favored  a  separation  between  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Tilton,  and  he  sent  word  to  that  effect 
through  his  wife.  Mr.  Beecher  did  not  know  at  that 
time  that  Mr.  Tilton  had  already  extorted  from  his 
wife  a  confession  of  excessive  affection  for  her  pastor. 
In  December,  1870,  Mr.  Bowen  brought  to  Mr.  Beecher 
a  letter  from  Tilton  demanding  Mr.  Beecher's  with- 
drawal from  the  pulpit  and  from  Brooklyn.  Mr. 
Beecher  read  it  to  Mr.  Bowen  and  said  :  "  This  man 
is  crazy.  This  is  sheer  insanity."  Mr.  Bowen  asked 
Mr.  Beecher's  advice  as  to  whether  Tilton  should  be 
retained  by  him  as  a  chief  contributor  to  The  Inde- 
pendent and  as  editor  of  The  Brooklyn  Union  which  Mr. 
Bowen  controlled.  Mr.  Bowen  said  that  he  had  been 
overwhelmed  by  the   stories  of  Tilton's  private  life 

l"  Life,"  pp.  52-53. 


384  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

and  habits.  Under  the  provocation  of  Tilton's  threat- 
ening letter,  and  with  the  knowledge  of  Tilton's 
domestic  cruelties,  Mr.  Beecher  strongly  advised  a 
severance  of  Mr.  Bowen's  connection  with  Tilton. 
Mr.  Beecher  believed  that  his  advice  precipitated  Til- 
ton's downfall. 

Mr.  Beecher  became  very  unhappy  as  he  thought 
over  Tilton's  disaster.  He  had  loved  him  much  as  a 
man,  and  now  he  was  cast  forth  from  his  important 
position.  His  home  did  not  promise  him  such  sym- 
pathy and  strength  in  the  time  of  adversity  as  men 
thus  tried  sadly  need.  Learning  what  Mr.  Beecher 
had  done,  Tilton  proceeded  to  extort  from  his  wife  a 
confession  incriminating  Mr.  Beecher,  charging  him 
with  improper  proposals  to  her. 

After  learning  of  this  false  confession,  Mr.  Beecher 
went  to  see  her  immediately.  She  admitted  its  falsity 
and  excused  her  conduct  on  the  ground  that  she  was 
urged  to  make  this  confession  by  her  husband,  who 
persuaded  her  that  if  she  confessed  to  an  improper 
affection  for  Mr.  Beecher,  it  would  be  easier  for  him 
(Tilton)  to  confess  his  own  misdeeds,  and  that  this 
would  be  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  better  life.  Mr. 
Beecher  urged  her  to  retract  this  confession,  promis- 
ing that  the  retraction  should  not  be  used  to  injure 
her  husband.  He  got  a  pen  and  paper  and  she  wrote: 
"  Wearied  by  importunity  and  weakened  by  sickness,  I 
gave  a  letter  inculpating  my  friend  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  under  assurances  that  it  would  remove  all 
difficulties  between  myself  and  my  husband.  That 
letter  I  now  revoke.  I  was  persuaded  to  it,  almost 
forced,  when  I  was  in  a  weakened  state  of  mind.  I 
regret  it  and  I  revoke  all  its  statements.     I  desire  to 


THE    LONG    DARKNESS.  385 

say  explicity  that  Mr.  Beecher  has  always  treated 
me  in  a  manner  becoming  a  Christian  and  a  gentle- 
man." 

Perceiving  clearly,  and  feeling  keenly  what  great 
disasters  to  himself,  his  family,  his  Church,  and  the 
cause  of  Christianity  would  certainly  follow  a  public 
accusation,  Mr.  Beecher  fell  into  a  morbid  condition 
of  mind.  Plainly  seeing  that  the  charge,  though 
utterly  untrue,  might  lead  to  most  ruinous  results, 
his  actions  during  the  next  four  years  must  be 
explained  in  large  part  by  his  desire  "  to  keep  these 
matters  out  of  sight." 

In  his  distressed  state  of  mind  Mr.  Francis  D. 
Moulton,  the  "  Mutual  Friend  "  found  him,  persuaded 
him  of  Tilton's  good  character,  pictured  him  as  ruined 
in  reputation,  purse,  and  prospects,  and  shattered  in 
his  family,  while  Mr.  Beecher  was  overflowing  with 
prosperity.  He  was  made  to  believe  that  Mrs.  Til- 
ton's  undue  affection  for  himself  was  the  beginning  of 
the  trouble.  This  "  friend  "  worked  upon  Mr.  Beech- 
er's  guilelessness,  generosity,  and  impulsiveness,  and 
it  was  but  natural  that,  under  these  circumstances, 
such  a  man  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  magnanimous, 
over-generous,  chivalrous  toward  others,  should  have 
blamed  himself  excessively.  "  The  case,  as  it  then 
appeared  to  my  eyes,  was  strongly  against  me.  My 
old  fellow  worker  had  been  dispossessed  of  his  emi- 
nent place  and  influence,  and  I  had  counseled  it ;  his 
family  had  been  well-nigh  broken  up,  and  I  had 
advised  it  ;  his  wife  had  long  been  sick  and  broken 
in  health  and  body,  and  I,  as  I  fully  believed,  had 
been  the  cause  of  all  this  wreck  by  continuing  with 
blind  heedlessness  the  friendship  which  had  beguiled 
25 


386  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

her  heart,  and  had  roused  her  husband  to  a  fury  of 
jealousy,  though  not  caused  by  any  intentional  act  of 
mine."  "I  had  thought  myself  an  old  stick,  and  I 
was  amazed  and  horrified  to  find  this  morning  glory 
twining  about  me."  ' 

In  these  unhealthy  moods  of  excessive  condemna- 
tion, Mr.  Beecher  said  and  wrote  much  about  himself 
which  it  was  easy  for  unscrupulous  men  to  turn  dis- 
astrously against  him,  and  which  it  is  still  easy  for 
unsympathetic  and  unimaginative  men  to  misinter- 
pret. 

The  story  of  what  Mr.  Beecher  suffered  through 
the  next  four  years  of  silence  is  most  harrowing.  It 
is  not  in  the  least  necessary  to  recall  the  confer- 
ences, devices,  arguments,  and  all  the  details  of 
that  humiliating  record  ;  Mr.  Beecher's  perplexities, 
Tilton's  pecuniary  troubles,  his  alternating  between 
genial  affection  and  scowling  threats;  his  insinuations; 
the  starting  of  rumors;  the  beginning  of  his  efforts  to 
poison  the  public  mind;  his  eagerness  to  compile 
"  statements  ";  the  terrible  accusations  which  made 
Mr.  Beecher  look  forward  to  sudden  death  as  a  grate- 
ful relief  ;  the  attacks  and  perhaps  blackmailing 
efforts  which  Mr.  Beecher  did  not  understand  as 
such;  the  extorting  of  money  through  his  generosity; 
the  outbreak  of  the  Woodhull  story,  and  finally,  in 
June,  1873,  when  he  discovered  that  Tilton  had  been 
deceiving  him  right  along,  and  was  supplying  the 
public  with  scandalous  rumors,  Mr.  Beecher's  publica- 
tion of  a  card  in  the  Brooklyn  Eagle,  boldly  chal- 
lenging anybody  to  publish  any  letters  or  give  any 


1  From  a  conversation  with  Prof.  G.  B.  Willcox. 


THE    LONG    DARKNESS.  387 

information  concerning  him,  and  stamping  as  false 
the  stories  and  rumors  that  had  been  circulated. 

In  1873,  Tilton  was  formally  charged  by  Plymouth 
Church  with  being  the  slanderer  of  his  pastor.  He 
replied  that  he  had  not  been  a  member  of  that  Church 
for  more  than  four  years,  and,  according  to  its  rules, 
the  Church  voted  to  drop  his  name  from  the  roll. 
Two  neighboring  and  sister  Churches,  in  disapproval 
of  this  action,  called,  in  March,  1874,  an  Advisory 
Council.  This  Council  did  not  approve  of  the  dis- 
posal that  Plymouth  Church  had  made  of  Mr. 
Tilton's  case.  It  also  pronounced  the  action  of  the 
two  sister  Churches  unwise  and  hasty,  and  further- 
more expressed  the  opinion  that  Plymouth  Church 
should  not  be  read  out  of  fellowship. 

In  June,  1874,  Tilton  published  a  statement  declar- 
ing that  Mr.  Beecher  had  committed  an  offense 
against  him  which  he  forbore  to  name,  although, 
changing  his  tactics,  on  July  21st,  he  published  an- 
other statement,  charging  that  Mr.  Beecher's  offense 
had  been  the  gravest  possible  against  his  family.  "  In 
all  the  stories  which  he  and  Moulton  had  told  to 
various  friends  at  different  times,  and  in  the  state- 
ments which  he  had  prepared,  and  shown  in  confi- 
dence, the  charge  was  always  '  improper  proposals,' 
and  the  emphatic  assertion  of  his  wife's  innocence. 
Now  he  proposed  to  stake  all  on  one  cast  of  the 
dice.  He  would  bring  a  suit,  and  if  he  could  get 
no  more  help,  he  would,  at  least,  so  his  vanity  and 
Mr.  Beecher's  evil  wishers  assured  him,  crush  Mr. 
Beecher." ' 


'"  Biography,"  p.  532. 


3§8  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

Immediately  after  Tilton's  June  statement,  Mr. 
Beecher  asked  six  of  the  most  respected  men  from  his 
Church  and  congregation — Henry  W.  Sage,  Augustus 
Storrs,  Henry  M.  Cleveland,  Horace  B.  Claflin,  John 
Winslow,  and  S.  V.  White,  to  make  a  thorough  exam- 
ination of  all  the  evidence  in  the  case,  and  to  commu- 
nicate to  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Church  such 
action  as  they  deemed  right  and  wise. 

In  a  letter  sent  to  this  committee  Mr.  Beecher  said: 
"  For  four  years  I  have  borne  and  suffered  much  and 
I  will  not  go  a  step  further.  I  will  be  free.  I  will  not 
walk  under  a  rod  or  yoke.  If  any  man  would  do  me 
a  favor,  let  him  tell  all  he  knows  now.  It  is  not  mine 
to  lay  down  the  law  of  honor  as  to  the  use  of  other 
persons'  confidential  communications,  but  in  so  far  as 
my  own  rights  are  concerned,  there  is  not  a  letter  nor 
document  which  I  am  afraid  to  have  exhibited,  and  I 
authorize  any  and  call  upon  any  living  person  to  pro- 
duce and  bring  forth  whatever  writings  they  have 
from  any  source  whatsoever." 

"  It  is  time  for  the  sake  of  decency  and  public  morals 
that  this  matter  should  be  brought  to  an  end.  It  is 
an  open  pool  of  corruption   exhaling  deadly  vapors." 

"  For  six  weeks  the  nation  has  risen  and  sat  down 
upon  a  scandal.  Not  a  great  war  or  rebellion  could 
have  more  filled  the  newspapers  than  this  question  of 
domestic  trouble,  magnified  a  thousand-fold,  and,  like 
a  sore  spot  in  the  human  body,  drawing  to  itself 
every  morbid  humor  in  the  blood.  Whoever  is  buried 
with  it,  it  is  time  that  this  abomination  be  buried  be- 
low all  touch  or  power  of  resurrection."  ' 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  528-529. 


THE    LONG    DARKNESS.  389 

When  we  remember  all  that  followed,  as  well  as  all 
that  which  preceded  this  time,  we  cannot  wonder  at 
the  more  than  Herculean  efforts  which  this  greatly 
tried  and  perplexed  man  had  made  to  suppress  the 
scandal.  "  That  I  have  grievously  erred  in  judgment 
in  this  perplexed  case,  no  one  is  more  conscious  than 
I  am.  I  chose  the  wrong  path  and  accepted  a  disas- 
trous guidance  at  the  beginning,  and  have  indeed 
traveled  a  rough  and  ragged  edge  in  my  prolonged 
effort  to  suppress  this  scandal  which  has  at  last  spread 
so  much  disaster  through  the  land,  but  I  cannot  admit 
that  I  erred  in  desiring  to  keep  these  matters  out  of 
sight.  In  this  respect  I  appeal  to  all  Christian  men  to 
judge  whether  almost  any  personal  sacrifice  ought  not 
to  have  been  made  rather  than  to  suffer  the  morals  of  an 
entire  community,  and  especially  of  the  young,  to  be 
contaminated  by  the  filthy  details  and  scandalous 
falsehoods,  daily  iterated  and  magnified,  for  the  grat- 
ification of  impure  curiosity  and  the  demoralization 
of  every  child  that  is  old  enough  to  read."  1 

The  committee  appointed,  although  beginning 
their  sittings  on  the  28th  of  June,  did  not  complete 
their  report  until  the  28th  of  August.  Thirty-six 
witnesses  were  summoned,  most  of  whom  appeared. 
Tilton  presented  his  statement,  but  after  a  time  he 
withdrew,  not  liking  the  cross-examination.  Mrs. 
Tilton  appeared  before  the  committee,  and  most 
solemnly  denied  the  charge  made  by  her  husband. 
The  full  statement  which  Mr.  Beecher  then  made 
brought  most  grateful  and  satisfactory  relief  to  a 
multitude    of    bereaved    and    sorrowing    minds.     It 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.    518-519. 


390  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

furnished  a  clear  and  rational  explanation  of  his 
conduct. 

Among  the  many  letters  which  cheered  him  at  this 
time  was  one  from  President  Noah  Porter,  of  Yale 
College,  expressing  his  unabated  confidence  and 
increasing  sympathy.  "  I  have  just  read  your  state- 
ment, and  am  more  than  satisfied  with  it.  It  will  be 
a  slight  thing  to  say  that  I  believe  it  to  be  true.  I  do 
not  read  for  myself,  but  for  the  world  at  large.  I 
believe  that  it  will  be  accepted  as  true  by  all  except 
the  sons  of  Belial,  and  those  who  have  been  com- 
mitted against  you  in  decided  partisanship."1 

After  carefully  reviewing  the  evidence,  the  com- 
mittee completely  exonerated  Mr.  Beecher  from  the 
charges  made,  finding  nothing  whatever  to  impair 
perfect  confidence  in  his  Christian  character  and 
integrity.  The  blame  which  may  attach  to  Mr. 
Beecher's  method  of  conduct  in  this  terrible  affair 
was  also  gently  touched  upon  in  the  committee's 
report.  "If  this  were  a  question  of  error  in  judg- 
ment on  the  part  of  Mr.  Beecher,  it  would  be  easy  to 
criticise,  especially  in  the  light  of  recent  events. 
Any  such  criticism,  even  to  the  extent  of  regrets  and 
censure,  we  are  sure  no  man  will  join  in  more 
earnestly  than  Mr.  Beecher  himself." 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  532. 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII. 

THE    SON    OF    THE    RIGHTEOUS    DELIVERED. 

At  an  immense  meeting  held  in  Plymouth  Church 
on  the  28th  of  August,  1874,  a  unanimous  vote  was 
passed  adopting  the  report  and  conclusions  of  the 
Committee  of  Investigation.  Mr.  Beecher's  hour  of 
relief  has  come.  For  four  years  he  had  been  tortured 
by  miscreants  ;  he  had  carried  a  burden  of  anxiety 
that  would  have  crushed  any  other  man.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  any  recent  moral  or  intellectual  phenomenon  is 
more  remarkable  than  the  prodigious  toil  which  Mr. 
Beecher  was  able  to  undergo  while  passing  through 
his  years  of  agony.  The  first  volume  of  the  "  Life  of 
Christ,"  the  three  courses  of  "  Lectures  on  Preach- 
ing," at  Yale  in  1872-4,  his  editorial,  platform,  and 
pulpit  work,  attest  his  mighty  force  and  productive- 
ness, during  these  years  of  sorrow,  silence,  and 
anxiety. 

Though  the  scandal  caused  a  diminishing  of  his 
influence  in  nearly  every  direction,  except  with  his 
own  people  and  his  most  enthusiastic  friends,  his 
pulpit  work  was  perhaps  never  so  great  and  mar- 
velous as  in  the  three  years  following  the  final 
outbreak  of  the  trouble.  Those  who  were  with  him 
felt  that  he  walked  with  God.  It  is  true  that  he  had 
new  sorrows   to  bear,  almost  the  hardest  which   ever 


392  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

come  to  men — the  alienation  and  hostility  of  cherished 
friends  and  brethren,  the  curtailment  of  his  power  for 
good,  and  every  form  of  personal  obloquy.  His  case  was 
peculiar,  like  himself,  and  his  name  was  so  associated 
with  political,  personal,  and  theological  controversies 
that  public  opinion  was  divided  in  regard  to  his 
innocence,  as  it  had  always  been  in  regard  to  his 
wisdom.  But  he,  himself,  had  "  entered  the  harbor 
of  peace.'1 

"  And  what  was  most  singular  was  that  when 
the  Church  came  into  an  eclipse,  I  came  out  of  it.  I 
had  had  my  time  when  I  was  dumb  and  opened 
not  my  mouth  and  was  led  like  a  sheep  to  slaughter. 
But  when  the  terrible  trouble  came  upon  the  whole 
Church,  with  its  immense  suffering,  there  came  to  me 
emancipation.  God  was  pleased  to  uphold  me  as 
I  walked  alone  and  in  silence,  and  afterwards  he  gave 
me  such  relief  that,  during  the  two  or  three  years  in 
which  the  Church  was  shrouded  with  anxiety,  I 
was  filled  with  trust  and  courage  and  was  enabled  all 
the  time  to  lift  up  the  Church  and  carry  it  hopefully 
along  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath." 

It  is  probable  that  a  volume  of  testimonies  could  be 
compiled  from  those  who  heard  Mr.  Beecher  between 
1874  and  1878  as  to  the  wonderful  uplifting  and  peace- 
giving  power  of  his  prayers  and  pulpit  utterances. 

He  said  :  "  I  have  rolled  off  my  burden,  I  am  in 
the  hands  of  God,  I  am  certain  of  salvation  and  safety 
in  God,  and  I  do  not  give  it  any  lower  application, 
but  I  am  hidden  in  His  pavilion,  I  am  surrounded  by 
His  peace  and  I  have  got  back  through   storms  and 


"  Biography,"  p.  531. 


THE  SON  OF  THE  RIGHTEOUS  DELIVERED.  393 

troubles  to  the  simplicity  and  quiet  enjoyment  which 
belonged  to  me  many  years  ago.  My  heart,  my  feel- 
ing, and  my  soul  run  very  quiet,  and  it  is  the  result 
not  so  much  of  any  visible  and  external  thing  as  that 
I  am  sure  that  I  am  surrounded  by  the  hand  of  my 
God.  I  live  in  Him  and  He  lives  in  me,  and  He  gives 
the  promised  peace."  l 

Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt  in  his  reminiscences  recalls  that  in 
1877,  at  the  close  of  a  very  successful  lecture  which 
Mr.  Pratt  had  arranged  for  him,  Mr.  Beecher  said  : 
"You  must  not  lose  any  more  sleep  for  fear  you  will 
lose  money  on  me."  "I  said,  '  Mr.  Beecher,  I  have 
never  lost  any  sleep  over  you  except  once,  on  the  day 
when  Mr.  Tilton  made  his  sworn  statement  I  was  so 
anxious  and  troubled  that  I  had  no  rest  and  I  tossed 
about  the  livelong  night.  I  was  anxious  that  you 
should  make  matters  entirely  clear.' 

"  Tears  came  to  his  eyes,  and  he  said  :  '  My  friends 
were  much  more  troubled  than  I  was.  I  was  in  the 
hands  of  God;  these  things  are  of  the  past  and  I  wish 
my  friends  were  as  little  troubled  about  them  now  as 
I  am.'  " 

Tilton  and  his  chosen  friend  perceived  that  they 
must  "  resort  to  some  desperate  measures  or  surrender 
themselves  to  everlasting  infamy."  On  July  21st, 
1874,  Tilton  had  finally  made  a  definite  charge  and 
began  action  against  Mr.  Beecher  in  the  Brooklyn 
City  Court,  the  trial  of  which  was  opened  before 
Judge  Neilson  on  the  nth  of  January,  1875.  The 
damages  were  placed  at  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars. 


1,1  Biography,"  p.  531. 


394  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  there  has  been  no 
sensation  like  the  Beecher-Tilton  trial  in  this  genera- 
tion. For  six  exciting  months  it  continued.  The 
legal  talent  employed  included  among  others,  Morris, 
Beach,  and  Pryor,  for  the  plaintiff,  and  Evarts,  Porter, 
Tracey,  Shearman,  and  Abbott,  for  the  defendant. 
Some  of  the  scenes  of  this  trial  are  among  the  most 
extraordinary  in  modern  annals.  Although  the  tes- 
timony, which  covers  several  thousand  pages,  added 
but  little  to  what  was  previously  well  known,  still  the 
public  interest  was  greedy  and  continuous.  During 
the  trial  Mrs.  Tilton,  debarred  from  testifying,  rose  in 
Court  and  presented  a  document  containing  these 
words  among  others:  "  For  five  years  past  I  have 
been  the  victim  of  circumstances  most  cruel  and 
unfortunate,  struggling  from  time  to  time  for  a  place 
only  to  live  honorably  and  truthfully.  Released  for 
some  months  from  the  will  by  whose  power  uncon- 
sciously I  criminated  myself  again  and  again,  I  declare 
solemnly  before  you,  without  fear  of  man  and  by  faith 
in  God,  that  I  am  innocent  of  the  crimes  charged 
against  me." 

Through  that  half  year  of  agonizing  trial  Mrs. 
Beecher  was  always  at  her  husband's  side,  and  Mr. 
Beecher  had  the  same  quiet  look,  the  same  uncon- 
strained manner  that  belonged  to  him  in  the  lecture- 
room  or  parlor.  On  the  24th  day  of  June,  the  day 
when  Mr.  Beecher  was  sixty-two  years  of  age,  the 
case  was  given  to  the  jury,  and  after  nine  days  of 
striving  to  reach  an  agreement,  they  were  discharged. 
There  were  three  votes  for  the  plaintiff  and  nine  for 
the  defendant.  "  We  are  informed  on  the  authority 
of  one  of  the  jurors   that   several   times   they  stood 


THE    SON    OF    THE   RIGHTEOUS   DELIVERED.  395 

eleven  to  one  in  the  defendant's  favor.  Once  all  agreed 
on  a  verdict  for  the  defendant  when  a  juror  unfortu- 
nately remarked  that  his  son  had  wagered  a  large  sum 
on  a  verdict  for  the  defendant.  This  statement  split 
the  jury  at  once,  and  from  thence  on  they  remained 
three  to  nine  until  they  were  discharged."1 

Though  the  jury  and  the  public  were  divided  over 
the  question  of  Mr.  Beecher's  innocence,  the  judge 
and  the  greatest  lawyers  on  this  famous  trial  appear 
to  have  been  of  one  mind.  Judge  Neilson  became 
a  warm,  true  friend  of  Mr.  Beecher,  and  eight  years 
after  the  trial  he  presided  at  a  meeting  in  the  Brook- 
lyn Academy  of  Music,  at  which  testimonials  of 
respect  and  love  were  given  Mr.  Beecher  on  his 
seventieth  birthday.  Mr.  William  A.  Beach,  the  lead- 
ing counsel  for  Tilton,  who  was  predisposed  to  think 
Mr.  Beecher  guilty,  afterwards  frequently  pronounced 
him  innocent.  "I  had  not  been  four  days  on  the 
trial  before  I  was  confident  that  he  was  innocent."  His 
appearance  and  utterance,  when  he  asserted  his 
innocence  on  the  witness-stand,  were  the  most  sublime 
and  inspiring  exhibition  of  the  majesty  of  human 
nature  that  he  ever  beheld.  He  could  not  see  how 
one  could  resist  that  solemn  avowal.  "  I  felt  and  feel 
now,"  said  he,  "  that  we  were  a  pack  of  hounds  try- 
ing in  vain  to  drag  down  a  noble  man."  2 

Rev.  Dr.  Allon,  of  London,  one  of  the  most  careful 
and  scholarly  of  English  preachers,  who  had  been 
greatly  puzzled  by  some  of  the  complications  in  this 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  533. 

2  John  D.  Parsons,  Law  Journal,  Albany,  N.  Y. ,  March  19, 1887; 
quoted  in  "  Patriotic  Addresses,"  p.  151. 


396  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

difficult  affair,  when  the  civil  trial  of  Mr.  Beecher 
began,  called  to  him  several  of  his  best  parishioners, 
some  of  whom  were  eminent  lawyers,  and  they  agreed 
that  each  should  read  most  carefully  every  part  of 
the  case  and  gain  an  accurate  understanding  of  the 
whole.  After  the  case  was  ended  "  these  experts 
came  together,  and,  without  discussion,  gave  their 
individual  ballots;  the  result  being  unanimous  that 
there  was  no  evidence  to  sustain  the  charge  of  the 
plaintiff."  ] 

Perhaps  the  simplest  way  out  of  the  difficulties 
which  surround  this  case  is  a  true,  full,  sympathetic 
understanding  of  Mr.  Beecher's  remarkably  frank, 
emotional,  impulsive,  generous,  guileless  tempera- 
ment and  his  occasional  strange  and  morbid  moods. 
His  sister,  Mrs.  Stowe,  wrote  to  George  Eliot : 
"  My  brother  is  hopelessly  generous  and  confiding. 
His  inability  to  believe  evil  is  simply  incredible,  and 
so  has  come  all  this  suffering.  ...  I,  who  know 
his  purity,  honor,  and  delicacy,  know  that  he  has  been 
from  childhood  of  an  ideal  purity — who  reverenced 
his  conscience  as  his  king,  whose  glory  was  redressing 
human  wrongs,  who  spoke  no  slander,  no,  nor  listened 
to  it." 

To  some  these  words  may  seem  to  have  been 
dictated  by  sisterly  affection  and  partiality.  Is  it  not 
likely  that  they  are  far  nearer  the  truth  than  the 
interpretations  of  Mr.  Beecher's  conduct  made  by 
men  whose  temperament  was  totally  different  from 
his? 


1  From  Howard's  sketch  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  "  Patriotic 
Addresses,"  p.  150. 
*"  Life  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,"  p.  478-480. 


THE  SON  OF  THE  RIGHTEOUS  DELIVERED.  397 

Again  Mrs.  Stowe  wrote  of  him  :  "  Never  have  I 
known  a  nature  of  such  strength  and  such  almost 
childlike  innocence.  He  is  of  a  nature  so  sweet  and 
perfect  that,  though  I  have  seen  him  thunderously 
indignant  at  moments,  I  never  saw  him  fretful  or 
irritable — a  man  who  continually  in  every  little  act  of 
life  is  thinking  of  others;  a  man  that  all  the  children 
of  the  street  run  after,  and  that  every  sorrowing, 
weak,  and  distressed  person  looks  to  as  a  natural 
helper.  In  all  this  long  history  there  has  been  no 
circumstance  of  his  relation  to  any  woman  that 
has  not  been  worthy  of  himself — pure,  delicate,  and 
proper — and  I  know  all  sides  of  it  and  certainly 
should  not  say  this  if  there  were  even  a  misgiving. 
Thank  God  there  is  none,  and  I  can  read  my  New 
Testament  and  feel  that  by  all  the  beatitudes  my 
brother  is  blessed."  ' 

Dr.  Lyman  Abbott,  who  knew  Mr.  Beecher  well, 
explains  why  he  was  so  peculiarly  liable  to  mis- 
interpretation. "  His  opalescent  nature,  his  kaleido- 
scopic moods,  his  profound  intellectual  and  spiritual 
insight,  his  impatience  of  the  mere  mechanics  and 
formularies  of  religion  which  are  of  larger  moment 
than  he  realizes,  because  the  weak  need  props  which 
the  strong  do  not  need,  his  intensely  emotional  nature 
and  his  utter  disregard  of  his  own  reputation,  make 
him  often  an  enigma  to  his  friends  and  always  an 
easy  subject  for  the  misrepresentation  of  envy,  malice, 
and  uncharitableness."  3 

It  is  known  to-day  that  many  of  those  who  were 


1  "  Life  of  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,"  p.  480. 

2  "  Life  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  Preface,  p.  vii. 


398  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

« 

generally  deemed  firm  believers  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
guilt  and  whose  unfriendliness  told  so  powerfully 
against  him  in  the  public  mind,  have  acknowledged 
that  they  were  not  believers  in  his  guilt,  but  that  they 
had  been  greatly  disappointed  in  Mr.  Beecher,  whom 
they  had  formerly  loved  and  trusted,  after  discovering 
in  him  such  serious  defects  of  character.  But  it 
should  be  remembered,  when  we  think  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  four  years  of  silence,  that  he  had  put  him- 
self under  wrong  and  misleading  guidance  ;  and  it 
should  be  remembered  also  what  was  the  peculiar 
character  of  that  brilliant  personage  whose  vanity, 
jealousy,  and  cruel  selfishness  he  sought  to  control, 
and  what  were  the  grave  and  momentous  interests 
involved.  Few  men  have  ever  been  tried  by  circum- 
stances so  singular  and  terrible,  in  the  midst  of  such 
a  queer  lot  of  hyperemotional  and  crack-brained 
people. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  wise  student  of  human  nature  in 
general  and  sometimes  a  poor  judge  of  human  nature 
in  particular.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  he  made 
a  bad  choice  of  friends;  it  is  more  accurate  to  say 
that  bad  friends  came  to  him  as  an  infliction  from  a 
mysterious  Providence.  If,  in  1872,  Mr.  Beecher  had 
not  been  bound  in  honor  to  be  silent,  and  had 
accepted  Dr.  Storrs's  kindly  and  generous  offer  of 
service,  perhaps,  with  the  aid  of  that  powerful  and 
masterly  friend,  he  might  have  brought  even  Tilton 
to  his  senses,  and  certainly  he  would  have  gone  to  his 
great  trial  with  an  ampler  reinforcement  of  public 
confidence  behind  him. 


CHAPTER    XXXIX. 

A    MULTITUDE    OF    COUNSELORS. 

The  history  of  the  noblest  leaders  in  the  Christian 
Church  has  been,  in  all  ages,  a  history  of  hate  and 
defamation.  From  the  time  of  Origen  to  that  of 
John  Wesley  a  malignant  personal  element  has  often 
been  commingled  with  the  odium  theologicum  and  the 
odium  ecclesiasticum.  Everybody  remembers  what 
Hooker  eloquently  wrote  of  Athanasius,  alone  against 
the  world,  when  the  hearts  of  his  best  friends  had 
been  stolen  from  him,  and  there  appeared  to  be  no 
friends  left,  "excepting  God  and  death,  the  one  the 
defender  of  his  innocency,  the  other  the  finisher  of 
his  troubles."  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  surrounded 
by  an  army  of  friends,  but  the  warfare  which  he  was 
forced  to  wage  for  his  good  name  and  position  was 
prolonged  and  stubborn. 

After  the  summer  vacation  of  1875,  Mr.  Beecher 
returned  to  his  pulpit  to  discover  that  his  troubles 
had  not  ended.  Doubt  and  hostility,  in  all  the  vari- 
ous forms  which  he  had  excited,  appeared  to  be  com- 
bined in  a  persistent  attempt  against  him  and  his 
Church.  His  enemies  had  not  given  over  their  efforts 
to  break  him  down.  He  said  of  himself:  "  I  have  not 
been  hunted  as  an  eagle  is  hunted,  I  have  not  been 
pursued  as  a  lion  is  pursued,  I  have  not  been  pursued 
even  as  wolves  and  foxes.  I  have  been  pursued  as  if 
I  were  a  maggot  in  a  rotten  corpse.    And  do  you  sup- 


400  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

pose  that  it  is  in  human  nature,  through  months  and 
through  years,  not  to  feel  it  ?  But  if  it  please  God, 
who  has  enabled  me  to  go  through  the  desert  and 
Red  Sea,  that  I  should  go  on,  God  is  my  judge  that 
I  am  both  willing  and  I  am  able  to  go  on  again  for 
another  five  years;  for  I  can  do  all  things.  Christ 
strengthens  me,  and  the  life  that  I  now  live  in  the 
flesh,  I  live  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved  me 
never  so  much  as  now." 

To  those  who  remember  accurately  that  time,  the 
words  of  Thomas  G.  Shearman  will  scarcely  seem 
exaggerated,  certainly  not  in  what  he  says  of  the  loy- 
alty of  Mr.  Beecher's  friends:  "  Never  before  in  the 
history  of  this  country — never,  indeed,  in  the  history 
of  the  world — were  such  gigantic  efforts  put  forth  to 
crush  any  merely  private  citizen.  Never  was  an  en- 
tire Nation  so  absorbed  in  the  fate  of  such  a  man. 
Never  did  such  an  army  of  devoted  friends  rally  to 
his  support."  x 

No  eulogy  is  bright  enough  for  the  chivalrous  loy- 
alty, the  enthusiasm,  the  self-sacrifice,  the  identifica- 
tion of  their  interests  with  his,  which  characterized 
the  noble  army  of  Mr.  Beecher's  friends,  and  espe- 
cially his  own  people.  This  man  had  become  a  part 
of  themselves.  They  had  gone  through  a  horror  of 
great  darkness  on  his  account,  and  some  of  them  were 
still  in  the  shadow.  "  How  many  a  lone  woman," 
said  President  Porter,  "  in  poverty  and  distress,  as  she 
read  what  the  papers  reported,  has  perhaps  taken 
down  the  soiled  and  tear-spotted  bundle  of  the  Ply- 
mouth Pulpit,  which  had  become  like  a  song  in  her 


1  Henry  Ward  Beecher  "  Memorial  Service,"  p.  37. 


A    MULTITUDE    OF    COUNSELORS.  401 

pilgrimage,  and  felt  that  she  must  consign  it  to  the 
fire,  and  give  up  her  faith  in  man,  and  possibly  all  her 
faith  in  God." 

On  the  part  of  many  thousands,  unknown  to  Mr. 
Beecher,  to  whom  his  words  and  example  of  Chris- 
tian courage  and  self-sacrifice  had  been  comfort  and 
help,  it  was  exceedingly  painful  that  his  name  should 
be  kicked  like  a  football  about  the  streets,  placarded 
in  places  of  public  resort,  associated  with  vilest  insinu- 
ations. The  wounds  that  their  spirit  suffered  made 
one  of  the  tragedies  of  that  time. 

A  vast  deal  of  trouble  was  occasioned  to  Plymouth 
Church  by  a  few  members  who  did  not  attend  the 
services  and  who  threatened  to  call  councils  if  their 
names  were  dropped  from  the  Church  roll.  So  much 
annoyance,  nursed  and  augmented  by  secular  and 
religous  journals,  sprang  from  these  causes  that 
Plymouth  Church,  early  in  1876,  summoned  a 
National  Advisory  Council,  extending  invitations  to 
one  hundred  and  seventy-two  Churches  and  to  twen- 
ty-eight eminent  ministers  who  had  no  pastoral 
charge.  Finding  its  good  name  called  into  question 
on  account  of  the  principles  and  rules  which  it  had 
long  followed  in  the  regulation  of  its  own  affairs, 
finding  itself  under  very  trying  circumstances,  the 
Church  submitted  to  a  great  Council  a  series  of  ques- 
tions which  covered  all  the  points  under  discussion. 
Plymouth  Church  in  its  troubles  said  to  over  one 
hundred  and  seventy  Churches,  "  Come  and  help  us 
with  your  counsel,"  and  they  came,  three-fourths  of 
the  Churches  invited  being  represented.  Half  of  the 
declining  Churches  were  in  the  midst  of  revivals  and 
could  ill  spare  their  pastors,  or  the  pastors  were  pre- 
26 


402  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

vented  from  sickness  or  otherwise  from  going  to 
Brooklyn. 

At  a  Church  prayer-meeting  held  just  before  the 
Council  met,  Mr.  Beecher  gave  his  people  a  most  wise 
and  tender  address,  breathing  his  affection  for  them, 
but  full  of  admonition  lest  their  personal  sympathy 
for  him  in  his  trials  should  in  any  way  deflect  their 
intelligent  judgment,  and  partly  lest  any  demonstra- 
tion on  their  part  in  the  open  meetings  of  the  Coun- 
cil should  exert  any  influence,  or  be  supposed  to 
exert  any  influence,  over  those  who  sat  in  judgment. 
He  told  them  that  their  business  as  a  Church  was  not 
to  take  care  of  him  but  to  forward  the  work  of  the 
Divine  Master.  He  said:  "  This  Church  has  for  years 
been  called  to  go  through  deep  waters.  ...  I 
know  that  I  have  your  love  and  sympathy  and  I  know 
that  I  am  prayed  for  by  you — that  suffices  me;  but 
on  your  part,  it  will  be  very  hard  for  you  to  suffer 
this  human  feeling  toward  an  individual  to  fill  such  a 
a  place  in  your  hearts  as  that  it  may  be  said  to  fill 
your  experience.  You  are  a  Church  of  Christ  set  on 
a  hill  and  you  cannot  be  hid;  and  your  business  here 
is  to  manifest  Jesus  Christ  to  the  world  in  such  a  way  as 
to  win  them  to  a  nobler  life."  ' 

It  was  on  the  15th  of  February,  1876,  that  the 
Advisory  Council  assembled  in  Plymouth  Church. 
It  consisted  of  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven  mem- 
bers, the  largest  Congregational  Council  ever  assem- 
bled by  one  Church  in  America.  It  was  truly  national 
in  character,  its  members  hailing  all  the  way  from 
Maine  to   Kansas  and  from  Albany  to  Washington, 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  539-540. 


A   MULTITUDE    OF    COUNSELORS.  403 

It  represented  all  phases  of  opinion  on  what  is  known 
as  the  "  personal  question,"  from  absolute  faith, 
through  all  the  degrees  of  doubt,  to  absolute  distrust. 
One  minister  asserted  that  there  were  seventy-five 
members  of  the  Council  who  at  the  beginning  believed 
in  Mr.  Beecher's  guilt.  At  the  end  the  Convention 
was  unanimous  that  he  had  every  right  to  be 
regarded  as  an  innocent  and  much-persecuted  man. 

The  veteran  of  Congregationalism,  one  of  the 
famous  men  of  the  Republic,  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  of 
New  Haven,  was  chosen  Moderator  of  the  Council, 
and  ex-Governor  Dingley,  of  Maine,  and  Gen.  E.  N 
Bates,  of  Springfield,  111.,  were  elected  Assistant 
Moderators. 

In  his  address  of  welcome  Mr.  Beecher  said,  among 
other  things:  "  You  come  into  an  atmosphere  of 
prayer.  Your  coming  in  a  thousand  households  has 
been  the  theme  of  morning  and  evening  supplication. 
You  have  been  remembered  before  God,  and  in  all 
the  sessions  you  will  be  by  devout  men  and  women, 
by  a  great  multitude  who  have  power  with  God;  and 
we  have  reason  to  believe  that  your  staying  here  will 
be  not  alone  for  our  benefit,  but  for  your  own 
spiritual  edification,  and  that  watering,  you  will  your- 
self be  watered.  We  regret  that  we  were  obliged  to 
call  you  away;  but  we  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost;  we 
believe  in  the  presence  of  the  Saviour;  we  believe 
that  it  is  possible  for  God  to  so  pour  out  His  spirit 
upon  you  in  your  sessions  here  that  you  will  be  better 
qualified  to  go  home  and  labor  in  revivals  than  you 
were  even  before  you  came  here."1 


'"  Proceedings  of  the  Advisory  Council,"  pp.  11  and  12. 


404  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

No  man  can  be  said  to  have  been  the  leader  in  this 
important  Council,  yet  a  few  names  deserve  to  be 
singled  out  from  the  rest — the  Moderator,  Dr.  Bacon, 
full  of  energy  in  his  seventy-fourth  year,  eminent  for 
his  ability  and  his  frankness;  the  venerable  Dr.  J.  M. 
Sturtevant,  President  of  Illinois  College;  Deacon 
Samuel  Holmes,  a  great  giver  to  Western  institutions; 
Rev.  Dr.  Warren,  of  Lewiston,  Me.;  Drs.  Paine  and 
Talcott,  from  Bangor  Seminary;  Judge  Currier,  of 
St.  Louis;  Justice  Brewer,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Kansas ;  President  Strong,  of  Carleton  College, 
Minnesota;  Rev.  D.  O.  Mears,  of  Cambridge;  Dr. 
Wellman,  of  Maiden,  Mass.;  Dr.  Edward  Strong  and 
Deacon  S.  P.  Capen,  of  Boston;  Dr.  F.  A.  Noble,  of 
New  Haven;  Dr.  E.  P.  Parker,  of  Hartford;  Rev.  G. 
B.  Willcox,  of  Stamford;  Dr.  Wolcott,  of  Cleveland; 
President  Fairchild,  of  Oberlin.  Besides  these,  one 
of  the  most  judicious  and  influential  minds  in  the 
Council  was  that  of  Prof.  Timothy  Dwight,  of  Yale 
Theological  Seminary,  while  President  Porter,  of  Yale 
College,  one  of  the  most  accomplished  of  scholars  and 
chivalrous  of  Christian  gentlemen,  gave  time,  which 
he  could  ill  afford  to  withdraw  from  his  work,  to  the 
deliberations  of  that  notable  meeting. 

The  Council  remained  in  session  nine  days,  and  Mr. 
Beecher  and  his  Church  were  subjected  to  every  sort 
of  searching  examination.  It  is  doubtful  if  ever  in 
his  life  the  moral  and  intellectual  greatness  of  Mr. 
Beecher  was  more  conspicuously  illustrated.  It  was 
clarifying  to  many  clouded  minds  to  come  into  con- 
tact with  this  much  misrepresented  man  whose  name 
had  been  connected  with  all  sorts  of  obloquy  and 
whose  life  had  been  slandered  by  all  sorts  of  malig- 


A   MULTITUDE    OF   COUNSELORS.  405 

nant  innuendo.  The  loyalty,  chivalry,  great-hearted- 
ness,  and  unanimity  of  Plymouth  Church  were  made 
apparent  and  also  its  determination  to  know  all  the 
truth  about  its  pastor.  In  a  most  tender  and  eloquent 
address  before  the  Council,  Mr.  Rossiter  W.  Raymond 
described  the  spirit  of  its  members,  not  only  their 
love  for  Mr.  Beecher  and  enthusiasm  for  him,  but 
their  exaltation  of  duty  to  Christ,  of  purity  in  the 
Church,  of  self-forgetting  devotion  to  truth,  over  all 
personal  considerations,  and  above  all,  their  un- 
bounded affection  toward  their  pastor.  They  had 
searched  diligently  for  the  worst  that  could  be  known 
against  him.  It  is  "because  our  inquiries  have  con- 
firmed our  knowledge  of  the  man  that  we  have  felt  it 
a  Christian  duty  to  be  loyal  to  Christ  in  the  person  of 
His  faithful  and  persecuted  servant.  Nor  have  we 
even  dreamed  of  such  a  thing  as  retaining  in  a  place 
of  sacred  responsibility,  merely  on  the  ground  of  pre- 
tense of  forgiveness,  one  who  had  proved  himself 
weak  and  wicked.  The  doctrine  that  a  tearful  crimi- 
ual  should  be  invited  to  continue  in  a  position  that  he 
has  shown  himself  absolutely  unfit  to  fill,  that  his 
crime  should  be  concealed,  that  the  innocent  and  pure 
should  be  undeservedly  exposed  to  intimacy  with 
him — is  a  monstrous  and  foul  absurdity  which  we  do 
not  believe  in,  and  which  no  sane  person  seriously 
admits,  and  which  no  person  now  a  member  of  this 
Church  in  good  standing  ever  pretended  to  hold."  ' 

The  men  who  composed  the  Council  manifested 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  a  most  prayerful, 
devoted,  and  earnest  spirit,  the  members  feeling  that 


'"  Proceedings  of  the  Advisory  Council,"  p.  62. 


406  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

the  interests  not  only  of  Plymouth  Church,  hut  of 
every  Christian  household  in  the  land  were  in  their 
keeping.  Dr.  Henry  M.  Storrs,  during  the  half-hour 
prayer-meeting  before  the  first  morning  session, 
spoke  most  feelingly  of  the  deep  anxiety  of  his  heart. 
As  the  Secretary  of  one  of  the  great  missionary  socie- 
ties, he  had  seen  all  the  great  boards  of  Christian 
work  and  all  the  Churches  in  the  land  crippled  and 
rent  by  a  foul  and  troublesome  scandal.  It  was  the 
earnest  prayer  of  all  that  the  Council  might  do  some- 
thing to  restore  peace  in  the  American  Zion. 

Though  the  sessions  were  prolonged  beyond  expec- 
r.ation,  and  though  urgent  parish  work  was  pleading 
for  renewed  labor,  and  many  business  men  were  sac- 
rificing large  interests  by  absence,  nevertheless,  only 
three  out  of  the  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven  members 
asked  to  be  relieved  that  they  might  go  home.  The 
members  were  united  in  the  determination  to  get  at 
and  bring  out  the  whole  truth,  hurt  where  it  would. 
Equally  manifest  was  their  independent  spirit. 
Rumors  were  afloat  that  the  body  was  managed  by 
Plymouth  Church  and  its  pastor,  but  not  only  was  no 
such  effort  made,  but  it  was  scrupulously  avoided  and 
discountenanced  in  every  way.  Rev.  Dr.  Wellman 
said  in  effect:  "Beecher  is  the  last  man  in  the  world 
'o  manage  anybody.  He  managed  the  Council  as  the 
man  who  fell  among  the  thieves  managed  the  Good 
Samaritan  who  came  to  bind  up  his  wounds." 

Five  days  were  given  to  the  hearing  of  statements 
bearing  on  the  work  and  practice  of  Plymouth  Church. 
The  questions  of  the  letter-missive  were  put  into  the 
hands  of  six  committees  of  seven  each.  The  first 
conviction  reached  by  the  Council  was  that  the  news- 


A   MULTITUDE   OF   COUNSELORS.  467 

papers  sometimes  made  mistakes.  Such  had  been 
the  public  greed  for  items  concerning  Plymouth 
Church  and  its  pastor  that  news  had  been  manufac- 
tured by  the  wholesale,  and  furthermore  such  a  com- 
bination of  hostile  forces  had  beset  Plymouth  Church 
that  much  of  the  information  which  came  to  the  peo- 
ple had  been  twisted  and  tainted,  and  had  Mr.  Beecher 
attempted  to  correct  the  misstatements  that  had  gone 
forth  he  would  certainly  have  been  in  his  grave  long 
before. 

The  misrepresentations  continued  while  the  Council 
was  in  session.  One  member  counted  eight  mis- 
statements in  a  brief  editorial  in  a  New  England 
newspaper.  The  members  knew  that  mistakes, though 
unavoidable,  were  doing  great  mischief.  Mr.  Beecher 
had  said  in  a  Friday-night  talk:  "  When  Plymouth 
Church  is  attacked  she  shows  her  flag,"  but  the  read- 
ers of  the  Boston  newspapers  next  morning  saw  the 
tremendous  statement,  "  when  Plymouth  Church  is 
attacked  she  shows  her  fangs,"  and  great  Christian 
journals  rebuked  Mr.  Beecher  for  such  intemperate 
language  ! 

It  was  plain  from  the  first  that  the  committee  of 
Plymouth  Church  were  anxious  to  have  the  Council 
search  as  deeply  and  closely  as  possible  into  its  affairs. 
The  most  personal,  and  almost  impudent,  questions 
were  welcomed  and  frankly  answered.  A  careful 
study  of  the  men  who  surrounded  Mr.  Beecher,  such 
men  as  Professor  R.  W.  Raymond,  Thomas  G.  Shear- 
man, Dr.  Edward  Beecher,  Rev.  Mr.  Halliday,  Mr. 
Tilney,  John  T.  Howard,  S.  V.  White,  Mr.  Sage,  Mr. 
Claflin,  Mr.Winslow,  and  others,  led  the  Council  to  the 
judgment    which    Dr.   Wellman   expressed    when  he 


408  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

declared  them  to  be  able  men,  men  not  to  be  managed 
and  men  who  would  not  have  an  impure  pastor  if 
they  knew  it. 

The  examination  of  Mr.  Beecher  continued  through 
several  days,  and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  more 
difficult  testing  of  a  man's  moral  temper  and  mental 
capacities  than  he  endured.  It  was  painful  to  many 
members  of  the  Council,  but  to  him  it  gave  relief.  He 
laid  bare  his  heart  before  his  brethren  and  they  knew 
that,  however  strong  and  cheerful  that  heart  had  been 
at  times,  it  had  borne  great  burdens,  and  had  been 
rent  with  more  sorrows  than  there  were  daggers  in 
the  mantle  of  Caesar. 

Many  who  had  been  strangers  to  Mr.  Beecher  saw 
things  in  a  clearer  atmosphere.  As  one  said,  "  We 
must  see  a  man  and  hear  him  tell  his  own  story  to 
understand  him."  After  one  of  Mr.  Beecher's  most 
searching  examinations,  a  professor  in  Andover  The- 
ological Seminary  who  was  present  turned  to  a  friend 
and  exclaimed,  "  Who  can  think  for  a  moment  of 
that  man  being  guilty  ?  " 

These,  of  course,  were  impressions  merely,  but  im- 
pressions in  the  matter  of  character,  after  one  has  for 
a  long  time  been  in  the  presence  of  another,  are  cer- 
tainly of  more  value  than  gossip  and  rumor  and 
stealthy  innuendo.  Benjamin  Franklin,  one  of  the 
wisest  heads  ever  set  on  American  shoulders,  wrote: 
"  Truth  and  sincerity  have  a  certain  distinguishing 
natural  luster  about  them  which  can  never  be  per- 
fectly counterfeited;  they  are  like  fire  and  flame  that 
cannot  be  painted." 

From  the  very  constitution  of  Mr.  Beecher's  nature, 
as  both  his  friends  and  enemies  declared,  he  was  the 


A   MULTITUDE   OF    COUNSELORS.  409 

weakest  of  all  men  whenever  he  had,  in  his  own 
thought  even,  injured  another.  He  resorted  of  neces- 
sity to  excessive  and  exaggerated  self-condemnation, 
something  which  colder  and  less  generous  natures 
could  hardly  understand  any  more  than  some  men 
can  see  why  the  Apostle  Paul  should  have  stigma- 
tized himself  as  the  chief  of  sinners.  Many  people 
had  blamed  Mr.  Beecher  for  the  words  of  earnest 
reproof  and  indignation  which  he  had  spoken  con- 
cerning two  neighboring  clergymen  believed  to  be 
unfriendly.  It  was  an  unusual  thing  for  Mr.  Beecher 
to  err  after  this  fashion,  but  he  blamed  himself  for 
his  intemperate  words  far  more  than  his  friends  did, 
and  that,  too,  in  a  most  public  manner  at  the  closing 
session  of  the  Council.  Conscious  of  committing  an 
offense,  even  in  a  minor  matter,  Mr.  Beecher  was  all 
weakness  and  self-reproach.  But  carrying  such  a 
burden  of  guilt  and  of  infamy,  as  some  good  people 
imagined  he  carried  through  all  those  years,  and  as 
the  rabble  and  lewd  multitude  would  be  glad  to  be- 
lieve that  he  did,  Mr.  Beecher's  nature  would  have 
been  crushed  into  abject  impotence. 

Mr.  R.  W.  Raymond,  who  knew  Mr.  Beecher  inti- 
mately, said  of  him,  "  He  could  not  dissemble  ;  he 
could  not  give  force  or  expression  to  a  feeling  which 
was  not  with  equal  force  dominant  within  him";  and 
Mr.  John  R.  Howard  has  written:  "  To  prevaricate, 
to  give  a  shifty,  double-sensed  answer,  was  something 
that  in  forty  years  of  acquaintance  and  twenty  years 
of  close  personal,  literary,  and  business  association 
with  him  as  his  publisher,  I  never  knew  him  to  do, 
nor  do  I  believe  that  it  was  possible  for  him.  He 
could    be   silent — no    man    more    utterly  so;    and  at 


4IO  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

times,  when  pursued  by  questions  which  he  did  not 
wish  to  answer,  he  would  pass  into  silence  not  only, 
but  into  an  impassibility  of  countenance  that  gave  no 
more  sign  of  understanding  or  response  than  the  face 
of  a  sphinx.  When  he  spoke  at  all,  in  public  or  in 
private,  he  spoke  the  truth  as  it  was  given  him  to  see 
the  truth." 

This  brave  frankness,  this  simplicity  and  sincerity 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  nature,  and  the  fact  that  he  courted 
every  possible  investigation,  became  early  apparent 
to  the  members  of  the  Council.  "  I  should  like  to 
know  how  much  longer  a  man  need  be  at  the  focus 
of  a  solar  microscope,  with  all  the  sun  in  the 
heavens  concentrated  upon  him  for  six  months  and 
everything  that  could  be  raked,  from  the  North  Pole 
to  the  South  Pole,  and  round  the  earth  forty  times 
circuited,  raked  up  and  brought  in,  and  be  willing  to 
have  it  raked  up  and  brought  in  again?  How  much 
longer  does  a  man  want  to  have  his  willingness  to 
have  the  truth  come  out  vindicated?  If  there  is  any 
man  on  earth  that  has  anything  to  say,  that  he  wants 
to  say — if  there  is  any  man  on  earth  that  has  any- 
thing to  say  to  my  detriment,  I  here  now  challenge 
him  to  say  it.  I  go  further  than  that,  if  there  be  any 
angel  of  God,  semi-prescient  and  omniscient,  I  chal- 
lenge him  to  say  aught.  I  go  beyond  that,  and  in 
the  name  of  our  common  Redeemer  and  before  Him 
who  shall  judge  you  and  me,  I  challenge  the  truth 
from  God  Himself." 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  rational  man,  who  had  any 
sympathetic  knowledge  of  Mr.  Beecher,  could  have 
long  believed  that,  bearing  tne  unspeakable  guilt 
which  his  enemies  charged  upon  him,  he  could  have 


A    MULTITUDE    OF    COUNSELORS.  4II 

done  the  work  which  fell  to  his  lot  in  the  time 
immediately  preceding  the  Advisory  Council,  in  some 
respects  the  best  work  of  his  life.  For  two  years  he 
had  faced  and  defied  his  accusers  and  had  been  full 
of  faith  and  cheer  while  the  storm  of  obloquy  was 
fiercest,  keeping  at  his  work  with  unflagging  fidelity, 
leading  souls  to  Christ  and  gaining  from  wife,  sons, 
daughters,  brothers,  sisters,  and  all  who  were  nearest 
to  his  life,  a  redoubled  trust,  reverence,  and  affection. 

The  Council  was  soon  satisfied  that  Mr.  Beecher 
and  Plymouth  Church  were  afraid  of  no  investiga- 
tion and  that  they  courted  the  most  searching  exam- 
ination and  that  they  believed  that  for  years  they  had 
had  it.  Probably  no  other  Church  and  minister  since 
time  began  ever  had  all  their  affairs  o  widely  talked 
over.  It  is  a  moral  miracle  that,  with  a  score  of 
reporters  in  every  prayer-meeting,  Plymouth  Church 
had  not  been  disintegrated.  The  evident  plan  of  the 
enemies  of  that  Church,  who  owned  a  great  deal  of 
capital  in  New  York  newspapers,  had  been  to  weary 
out  the  defenders  of  truth  and  innocency.  The  result, 
however,  was  to  crystalize  the  membership  in  a  firmer 
loyalty.  A  summer  of  spiritual  fruitfulness  had  been 
theirs  in  all  this  winter  of  trouble,  and  the  witness  of 
God's  spirit  had  never  been  wanting. 

There  were  few  things  in  Mr.  Beecher's  investigation 
before  the  Council  that  created  a  deeper  impression 
than  the  words  in  which  he  spoke  of  his  independ- 
ence of  human  judgment  and  weariness  of  men  and 
their  sinful  affairs.  "I  do  not  care — as  long  as  God 
knows  and  my  mother — how  it  is.  I  have  come  to 
about  the  state  of  mind  that  I  do  not  care  for  you  or 
anybody  else.     Well,  you  know  that  it  is  not  so;  that 


412  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

I  do  care  and  I  don't,  and  I  do  again  and  then  I  don't 
— just  as  I  happen  to  feel.  I  am  tired  of  you,  I  am 
tired  of  the  world;  I  am  tired  of  men  that  make  news- 
papers and  men  that  read  them.  I  am  tired  of  a  com- 
munity that  has  not  a  particle  of  moral  reaction;  I 
am  tired  of  an  age  that  will  permit  the  newspapers  to 
be  flooded  and  to  make  themselves  a  common  sewer 
of  filth  and  scandal.  I  am  tired  of  a  community  that 
can  read  them,  and  read  them,  and  read  them,  with- 
out revolting.  I  am  tired  of  waiting  for  an  honest 
man  that  shall  stand  up  at  last  and  say:  '  In  the  name 
of  honor  and  manhood,  this  is  outrageous.'  And  yet 
I  am  going  to  bear  it,  and  I  am  going  on  preaching, 
and  I  am  going  to  preach  here.  When  I  am  shut  up 
here,  I  do  not  know  where  I  will  preach;  I  do  not 
believe  that  I  shall  live  long  after  I  have  stopped 
preaching.  ...  I  am  intrusted  with  the  tidings 
of  salvation  to  dying  men,  and  the  first  wish  of  my 
heart  is  not  my  good  name  or  my  reputation,  dear  as 
they  are  to  me  for  my  children's  sake  and  for  the 
sake  of  my  family.  After  all,  there  is  a  Name  that  is 
better  to  me  than  mine,  there  is  a  Name  above  every 
other  name — for  my  trouble  has  brought  me  very 
near  to  it  and  the  glory  of  Christ.  God's  glory  and 
God's  delicacy  and  sweetness  and  love  were  never 
made  so  apparent  to  me  as  since  I  have  felt  the  need 
of  them  in  other  folks." 

The  result  of  the  Council  was  announced  on  the 
24th  day  of  February.  Plymouth  Church  was  sus- 
tained on  the  points  in  controversy,  and  the  Council 
said:  "We  hold  the  pastor  of  this  Church,  as  we  and 
all  others  are  bound  to  hold  him,  innocent  of  the 
charges  reported  against  him   until  substantiated  by 


A    MULTITUDE    OF    COUNSELORS.  413 

proof."  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  pastor  had  so 
earnestly  demanded  that  his  accusers  be  brought  to 
face  him,  and  had  invited  any  further  investigation 
which  the  Council  thought  desirable,  for  the  sake  of 
the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  Churches  and  to  pro- 
tect Plymouth  Church  from  further  vexatious  pro- 
ceedings, the  Council  advised  the  Church  to  accept 
and  empower  a  commission  of  five  members,  to  be 
selected  by  a  committee  of  three,  from  a  list  of 
twenty  eminent  and  judicious  men,  the  duty  of  which 
commission  should  be  to  receive  and  examine  all 
charges  against  the  pastor  which  they  might  regard 
as  not  already  tried.  The  commission  was  appointed, 
but  no  charges  were  preferred,  although  they  waited 
a  year. 

The  result  of  this  historic  Council  was  that  the 
backbone  of  the  opposition  to  Mr.  Beecher  was 
broken.  It  did  much  to  bring  about  a  quieter  con- 
dition, and,  though  fierce  discussions  followed  in  the 
newspapers,  it  aided  powerfully  in  bringing  in  the 
time,  which  so  many  prayed  for,  when,  throughout 
the  land,  Ephraim  did  not  envy  Judah  nor  Judah  vex 
Ephraim. 


CHAPTER    XL. 


THE    SHADOW    LESSENING. 


What  remains  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life  does  not  need 
to  be  told  at  length.  The  pulpit  thunderer  had 
accomplished  his  best  and  greatest  work.  The  suffer- 
ing disciple  of  Christ  had  borne  his  heaviest  agony. 
Excitement  and  events  of  no  little  moment  were  yet 
to  follow.  For  ten  years  Mr.  Beecher  was  to  continue 
his  many-sided  labors.  His  name  was  always  to  be 
prominent  before  the  English-speaking  world.  The 
theological  changes  which  he  underwent  were  to 
draw  down  upon  him  renewed  hostility,  suspicion, 
and  distrust.  Many  of  his  strongest  friends  were  to 
contemplate  with  bitter  resentment  his  abandonment 
of  the  Republican  party  in  1884. 

But  his  good  name  had  been  vindicated;  his  place 
in  the  hearts  of  his  own  people  and  of  millions  of 
Americans  was  secure.  Even  the  changes,  theological 
and  political,  which  occurred  in  his  later  life,  widened 
his  large  constituency.  His  summer  in  England  in 
1886  was  to  reveal  how  warm  a  place  he  had  in  the 
regard  of  many  Englishmen.  His  courage,  his  kind- 
ness and  all  the  grand  elements  of  his  character 
became  more  and  more  apparent  as  animosities  died 
away,  and  the  American  people  contemplated  the 
brave  and  toilsome  old  age  of  one  who  had  rendered 
incalcuable  services  to  his  country. 


THE    SHADOW   LESSENING.  415 

With  the  close  of  the  Advisory  Council  in  1876 
began  the  last  epoch  in  Mr.  Beecher's  career.  Had 
he  died  six  years  earlier  his  sun  would  have  set  in 
greater  splendor.  It  was  not  given  to  him,  as  to 
Lincoln,  to  pass  away  at  the  supreme  moment  of  his 
life,  but  probably  fifty  years  hence  his  fame  will  be 
brighter,  and  the  estimate  of  his  character  higher,  on 
account  of  the  temporary  eclipse  which  darkened  his 
later  years.  He  who  belonged  to  the  glorious  company 
of  the  Apostles,  and  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the 
Prophets,  achieved  the  rarer  and  more  enduring 
renown  which  by  human  and  Divine  right  belongs  to 
the  noble  army  of  the  Martyrs. 

There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  trials  of  these 
later  years.  Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt  in  his  reminiscences, 
after  having  expressed  the  opinion  that  Mr.  Beecher 
seemed  to  him  "  to  have  preached  the  truest  Gospel, 
to  have  shown  the  truest  Christian  spirit,  to  have 
lived  the  best  Christian  life  of  any  of  the  great 
divines  or  saints  in  any  age,"  adds  these  words: 
"  Persecuted  in  a  manner  that  would  have  cast  down 
any  other  preacher  who  ever  lived,  he  endured  all, 
and  before  his  death,  saw  public  opinion  turn  more 
and  more  toward  him,  public  confidence  restored,  and 
friends  returned  by  the  thousands.  He  told  me  of 
the  countless  letters  that  came  to  him  from  every 
quarter,  from  all  over  the  globe.  To  him  the  great 
sorrow  of  the  great  disaster  that  overtook  him,  was 
the  lessening  of  his  usefulness.  He  said  to  me  once: 
'  I  was  not  aware  of  it — but  it  came  to  me  during  the 
first  years  of  the  great  sorrow,  that  I  had  been  the 
strongest  man  of  the  Nation,  and  that,  from  influences 
beyond  my  control,  I  was  shorn  of  my  strength  and 


416  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

must  live  to  the  end  of  my  days  under  a  cloud.  But 
I  shall  still  do  my  duty  until  God  takes  me.'  "  l 

Finding  himself  heavily  in  debt  after  the  close  of 
the  trial,  Mr.  Beecher  enlarged  and  prolonged  his 
annual  lecturing  tours,  extending  them  into  the 
South  and  Southwest,  and  as  far  as  the  Pacific  Coast. 
His  generous  people  had  raised  his  salary  to  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  during  the  year  of  the  trial, 
thus  giving  the  most  tangible  and  powerful  evidence 
of  their  unshaken  confidence  and  affectionate  enthu- 
siasm, but  even  this  had  not  saved  him  from  debt  in 
that  year  of  enormous  expenses.  Mr.  James  B.  Pond, 
who  managed  Mr.  Beecher's  lecturing  tours  for 
fifteen  years,  reports  that  he  delivered  on  an  average 
one  hundred  and  fifty  lectures  a  year,  and  that  dur- 
ing some  seasons  he  lectured  upwards  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  times,  besides  preaching  every  Sunday.  On 
one  trip  he  delivered  a  course  of  nine  lectures  in  San 
Francisco,  and  although  his  opinions  on  the  Chinese 
question  were  sharply  antagonized,  it  is  said  that  the 
proceeds  of  the  last  lecture  were  four  thousand  two 
hundred  dollars.  2 

Mr.  Beecher's  lecturing  had  always  some  of  the 
aims  and  qualities  of  his  preaching,  but  superadded 
to  all  previous  motives  for  engaging  in  this  kind  of 
toil,  there  was,  in  the  years  immediately  following  the 
Advisory  Councilman  earnest  purpose  to  regain  some 
of  his  lost  prestige  with  the  American  people.  His 
friends  argued  that- his  presence  and  words  would 
help  to  scatter  the  clouds  wherever  he  went,  and  so 
it  proved  in  New  England,  in  the  far  West,  and  even 


1  "  Unpublished  Reminiscences."     5  "  Life,"  p  152. 


THE    SHADOW    LESSENING.  417 

in  the  South.  After  Mr.  Beecher's  death,  his  lecture- 
agent  wrote:  "  Excepting  only  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico,  there  was  not  a  State  or  Territory  in  the 
Union  in  which  we  had  not  traveled  together.  In 
sunshine  and  in  storm;  by  night,  by  day,  by  every 
conceivable  mode  of  travel;  on  steamboats  and  row- 
boats,  by  stage,  and  on  the  backs  of  mules,  I  had 
journeyed  by  his  side.  I  was  with  him  in  the  days  of 
1876-8,  the  time  of  his  deepest  sorrow,  when  he  was 
reviled  and  spit  upon.  I  saw  the  majestic  courage 
with  which  he  passed  through  gaping  crowds  at  rail- 
road stations  and  at  the  entrances  of  hotels  and  pub- 
lic halls — a  courage  I  had  not  conceived  mere  human- 
ity could  possess.  I  have  looked  upon  him  when  I 
felt  that  I  would  give  my  poor  life  a  thousand  times 
could  that  sacrifice  alleviate  the  mental  sufferings 
that  I  knew  he  was  undergoing." 

The  testimonies  are  numerous  to  the  patience  and 
fortitude  manifested  by  Mr.  Beecher  during  these 
years.  In  1876  he  said:  "  I  do  not  know  the  man  or 
woman  on  the  face  of  the  earth  for  whom  I  cannot 
utter  a  prayer  that  shall  be  congenial  with  Christ's 
sweetest  moods.  I  do  not  know  one  persop  in  this 
Nation  for  whom  my  heart  does  not  go  out,  for  whom 
I  do  not  feel  sympathy,  and  for  whom  I  would  not 
sacrifice  something,  if  the  opportunity  were  given."1 

"Often,"  says  Mr.  Pond,  "I  have  seen  him,  on  our 
entering  a  strange  town,  hooted  at  by  the  swarming 
crowd,  and  greeted  with  indecent  salutations.  On 
such  occasions  he  would  pass  on,  seemingly  unmoved, 
to  his  hotel,  and  remain  there  until  the  hour  for  his 


1  From  Mr.  T.  J.  Ellinwood's   "  Unpublished  Reminiscences." 
27 


418  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

public  appearance;  then,  confronted  by  great  throngs 
he  would  lift  up  his  voice,  always  for  humanity  and 
godliness.  He  always  saw  and  seized  his  opportu- 
nity to  speak  to  the  whole  great  people,  and  when  he 
had  spoken,  the  assembly  would  linger  and  draw  near 
to  greet  the  man  whom  they  had  so  lately  despised. 
How  often  I  have  seen  the  public  attitude  change 
toward  him  in  a  town  to  which  he  had  come  but  the 
day  before.  Thus  he  went  from  city  to  city,  making 
advocates  of  all  who  heard  or  met  him."  l 

Thus,  with  all  his  deep  sorrow,  there  was  the  joy 
that  the  people  were  coming  back  to  him.  "  On  his 
return  from  lecturing  tours,  in  his  later  years,  when 
he  set  himself  to  regain  lost  ground  and  to  conquer 
prejudice,  he  would  relate  his  triumphs  with  the 
frank  exultation  of  a  boy.  But  none  of  these  things 
made  him  vain  or  conceited."2 

Mr.  Beecher's  letters  home,  giving  hasty  sketches 
of  his  lectures  in  Boston,  St.  Paul,  Madison,  Louis- 
ville, Pittsburgh,  and  other  cities,  recalled  the  vast 
audiences,  the  great  applause,  the  receptions  at  min- 
isters' meetings,  the  tears,  the  greetings,  and  hand- 
shakings; the  change  in  public  sentiment,  the  kind- 
ness of  old  enemies,  the  affection  of  the  people; 
honors  from  legislatures,  and  every  token  of  increas- 
ing trust  and  love. 

"  I  have  felt,  time  and  again,  that  that  which  I  have 
had  of  trouble  I  have  bought  at  a  cheap  rate;  the 
trouble  has  been  but  a  small  price  to  pay  for  a 
lodgment    in    the   hearts    of    the  best  men,  the  best 


1  "A  Summer  in  England  will)  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"p.  5. 

3  Thomas  G.  Shearman's  Address,  "A  Memorial  Service,"  p.  19. 


THE    SHADOW    LESSENING.  419 

women,  and  the  children.  I  have  found  that  those 
whose  love  is  deepest  and  warmest  represent  families 
who  look  at  everything  in  the  world  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  household — who  judge  of  preaching, 
of  ethics,  and  of  methods  by  the  relation  which  they 
bear  to  the  bringing  up  of  the  young,  and  to  the 
founding  and  maintaining  of  Christian  homes.  That 
part  of  the  community  who  live  in  the  household  and 
honor  it,  I  had  almost  said,  were  universally  my  most 
dear  and  cordial  friends."  1 


1  "  Biography,"  pp.  566-567. 


CHAPTER    XLI. 

NEW    LIGHT    ON    OLD    PROBLEMS. 

Freed  more  and  more  from  the  burden  which  had 
weighed  down  his  heart,  Mr.  Beecher's  mind  was 
eagerly  turned  to  giving  a  larger  and  fuller  state- 
ment of  his  developing  religious  opinions.  As  a  life- 
long student  of  science,  he  had  become,  with  Presi- 
dent McCosh,  Professors  Dana,  Le  Conte,  and  Gray, 
with  Mivart,  Wallace,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  a  con- 
vert to  the  theory  of  evolution.  The  adoption  of  this 
theory  powerfully  affected  his  thinking  and  teaching. 
It  hastened  forward  certain  tendencies  of  his  mind 
which  had  long  been  apparent.  The  new  views 
were,  of  course,  denounced  as  heresies;  and,  beyond 
anything  else,  his  famous  sermon  on  future  punish- 
ment, called  "The  Background  of  Mystery,"  greatly 
disturbed  many  conservative  theologians. 

What  Mr.  Beecher  spoke  from  his  pulpit  came  to 
many  people  in  America  with  such  a  large  mixture  of 
misstatement  and  exaggeration  that,  as  usual,  it 
called  forth  more  criticism  than  it  deserved.  If  his 
sermons  on  Evolution  and  Religion  had  come  to  the 
thinking  public,  first  of  all  in  the  pages  of  a  book,  as 
they  finally  did  in  1S85,  the  distrust  and  disturbance 
would  not  have  been  so  marked  and  profound.     The 


NEW    LIGHT    ON   OLD    PROBLEMS.  42I 

volume  on  Evolution  and  Religion  is  a  study  of  truth 
made,  it  would  seem,  like  most  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
studies,  under  the  greatest  emotional  excitement.  He 
sees  things  by  flashes,  and,  though  he  may  see  further 
in  certain  directions  than  other  men,  how  much  that 
he  utters  appears  to  us  distorted  and  inexact !  At 
times  he  excites  more  than  he  instructs,  but  his 
remarkable  prophetic  character  is  apparent  in  its 
pages.  Much  of  the  time  he  speaks  like  a  Hebrew 
seer  or  poet,  uttering  his  fervent  thoughts  when 
stirred  by  the  deepest  emotions.  Nothing  is  seen  by 
him  in  the  white  light  of  pure  intellect.  It  is  rosy  or 
rainbow  light  everywhere.  As  we  read  him,  we  seem 
to  ourselves  examining  flowers,  specimens,  and 
elements  in  a  room  illuminated  by  many-colored 
windows.  It  is  like  bringing  a  laboratory  into  a 
Gothic  cathedral.  To  the  theological  student  the 
effects  are  sometimes  bizarre.  We  feel  that  a  most 
wonderful  mind  and  heart  are  at  work,  but  we  also 
sometimes  feel  that  we  are  learning  quite  as  much  of 
Mr.  Beecher  as  we  are  of  Jehovah. 

In  October,  1882,  he  resigned  his  membership  in 
the  Congregational  Association  of  Ministers  in  New 
York  and  Brooklyn.  In  withdrawing  from  his  con- 
nection with  them,  a  step  which  he  deemed  necessary 
lest  his  brethren  might  feel  that  they  were  held  in 
any  measure  responsible  for  his  beliefs,  he  made  a 
somewhat  elaborate  statement  of  his  theological 
opinions.  After  stating  his  views  negatively,  he 
affirmed  that  he  was  working  on  the  same  lines  and 
in  the  same  direction  with  his  teachings  of  more  than 
forty-five  years.  As  his  doctrine  had  been  widely 
misrepresented,  he  touched  upon  the  sources  of  its 


422  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

misrepresentation.  They  partly  sprang  from  his  own 
impetuous  nature,  and  partly  from  the  way  in  which 
he  had  been  reported. 

Speaking  of  his  underlying  mental  philosophy  and 
his  personal  experiences  and  the  history  of  his  early 
preaching,  he  said  :  "  There  are  many  things  that 
are  necessary  to  a  system  of  theology  that  are  not 
necessary  to  the  conversion  of  men."  "  I  have  called 
those  things  fundamental  which  were  necessary  for 
the  conviction  of  sin,  for  the  conversion  from  sin,  for 
the  development  of  faith,  for  the  dominant  love  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  the  building  up  of  a 
Christlike  character.  That  dispenses  with  a  great 
many  doctrines  that  are  necessary  for  a  theological 
system  or  for  an  ecclesiastical  statement."1 

He  then,  with  some  detail,  told  what  he  believed  of 
the  nature  of  God,  of  his  acceptance  of  the  Trinity, 
of  his  enthusiastic  belief  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ  and 
in  the  Holy  Ghost  as  one  of  the  persons  of  the  God- 
head. He  declared  his  belief  in  general  and  special 
providence,  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  and  in  miracles. 
"I  wrote  in  a  book  when  I  came  to  Brooklyn:  'I 
foresee  there  is  to  be  a  period  of  great  unbelief  ;  now 
I  am  determined  so  to  preach  as  to  lay  a  foundation, 
when  the  flood  comes,  on  which  men  can  build,'  and 
I  have  thus,  as  it  were,  been  laboring  for  the  Gentiles, 
not  for  the  Jews,  in  the  general  drift  of  my  min- 
istry." a 

He  announced  his  belief  in  the  need  of  regeneration 
and  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  as  set  forth  in 
the  Westminster  Confession  of    Faith.     "  The  Bible 


1  "  Life,"  p.  493.     5  "  Life,"  p.  498. 


NEW    LIGHT    ON    OLD    PROBI  EMS.  423 

is  a  record  of  the  steps  of  God  in  revealing  Himself 
to  man.  The  inspiration  was  originally  upon  the 
generation,  upon  the  race,  and  then  what  was  gained 
step  by  step  was  gathered  up  as  this  says,  and  put 
into  writing  for  the  better  preservation  of  it." 

In  speaking  of  the  Atonement,  he  remarked:  "I 
am  accustomed  to  say  that  Christ  is  in  Himself  the 
Atonement.  That  He  is  set  forth  in  His  life,  teach- 
ing, suffering,  death,  resurrection,  and  heavenly  glory, 
as  empowered  to  forgive  sin  and  to  transform  men 
into  a  new  and  nobler  life,  who  know  Him  and  accept 
Him  in  full  and  loving  trust.  He  is  set  forth  as  one 
prepared  and  empowered  to  remit  the  penalty  of 
past  sins,  and  to  save  them  from  the  dominion  of  sin. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  salvation  that  men  should  know 
how  Christ  was  prepared  to  be  a  Saviour.  It  is  He 
Himself  that  is  to  be  accepted  and  not  the  philosophy 
of  His  nature  or  work.  I  employ  the  word  Christ  for 
that  which  systematic  writers  call  the  Atonement."1 

In  regard  to  future  punishment  he  set  forth  his 
belief  that  "  the  Scriptures  teach  explicitly  "  that  con- 
duct and  character  in  this  life  produce  respectively 
beneficial  or  detrimental  effects  both  in  the  life  that 
now  is  and  in  that  which  is  to  come,  and  that  a  man 
dying  is  not  in  the  same  condition  on  the  other  side 
whether  he  be  bad  or  whether  he  be  good;  but  that 
consequences  follow  and  go  over  the  border.  He 
believed  that  the  consequences  are  so  large  and 
dreadful  that  every  man  ought  to  be  deterred  from 
venturing  upon  them.  In  regard  to  the  continuance 
of  punishment  beyond  the  grave  he  said;  "I    do    not 


1  "  Life,"  pp.  502-503. 


424  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

think  we  are  authorized  by  the  Scriptures  to  say  that 
it  is  endless  in  the  sense  in  which  we  ordinarily  em- 
ploy that  term."  ' 

In  a  sermon  preached  in  1859  his  view  was  different. 
He  said:  "  I  sound  the  depths  of  the  other  world  with 
curious  inquiries  ;  but  from  it  comes  no  echo  and  no 
answer  to  my  questions.  No  analogies  can  grapple 
and  bring  up  from  the  depths  of  the  darkness  of  the 
lost  world  the  probable  truths.  No  philosophy  has 
line  and  plummet  long  enough  to  sound  the  depths. 
There  remain  for  us  only  the  few  and  authoritative 
words  of  God.  It  is  declared  that  the  bliss  of  the 
righteous  is  everlasting.  With  equal  directness  and 
simplicity  they  declare  that  the  doom  of  the  wicked 
is  everlasting."2 

In  a  private  letter  which  was  probably  one  of  his 
latest  utterances  on  this  subject  Mr.  Beecher's  mind 
appears  to  have  inclined  very  strongly  to  the  theory 
of  conditional  immortality. 

In  closing  his  address  before  the  Ministerial  As- 
sociation, Mr.  Beecher  said:  "I  have  endeavored 
through  stormy  times,  through  all  forms  of  excite- 
ment, to  make  known  what  was  the  nature  of  God 
and  what  He  expected  human  life  to  be,  and  to  bring 
to  bear  upon  that  one  point  every  power  and  influence 
in  me.  I  have  nothing  that  I  kept  back,  neither 
reason,  nor  wit,  nor  humor,  nor  moral  sensibility,  nor 
social  affection.  I  have  poured  my  whole  being  into 
the  ministry  with  this  one  object — to  glorify  God  by 
lifting  man  up  out  of  the  natural  state  into  the  pure 


1  "  Life,"  p.  505. 

8  "  Sermons,"  Harper's  edition,  Vol.  I.,  p.  209. 


NEW    LIGHT    ON    OLD    PROBLEMS.  425 

spiritual  life.  I  never  was  in  warmer  personal 
sympathy  with  every  one  of  you  than  I  am  now." 

Urgent  efforts  were  made  to  induce  him  to  recon- 
sider his  resignation,  but  his  determination  was  un- 
changed. The  very  deep  pain  and  regret  felt  by  all 
the  members  at  his  withdrawal  were  expressed  in  a 
cordial  resolution.  They  recognized  the  generous 
magnanimity  of  his  action,  though  they  earnestly  be- 
lieved that  the  exposition  of  his  doctrinal  views 
plainly  indicated  the  propriety  of  his  continued  mem- 
bership in  any  Association.  The  resolutions  closed 
with  these  words:  "We  desire  to  place  on  record,  as 
the  result  of  a  long  and  intimate  acquaintance  with 
Mr.  Beecher,  and  familiar  observation  of  the  results 
of  his  life  as  well  as  of  his  preaching  and  pastoral 
work,  that  we  cherish  for  him  an  ever-growing  per- 
sonal attachment  as  a  brother  beloved  and  a  deepen- 
ing sense  of  his  work  as  a  Christian  minister.  We 
cannot  now  contemplate  the  possibility  of  his  future 
absence  from  our  meetings  without  a  depressing  sense 
of  the  loss  we  are  to  suffer,  and  unitedly  pledge  the 
hearts  of  the  Association  to  him,  and  express  the  hope 
that  the  day  of  his  return  may  soon  come."  a 

In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Philip  Schaff,  the  learned  Church 
historian,  Mr.  Beecher  describes  his  theology  in  1885 
as  "evangelical,  progressive,  and  anti-Calvinistic," 
and  Dr.  Schaff  writes:  "  The  redeeming  trait  in 
Henry  Ward  Beecher's  theology,  the  crowning  excel- 
lence of  his  character,  the  inspiration  of  his  best 
words  and  deeds,  was  his  simple  childlike  faith  and 
burning  love  of  Christ  whom  he  adored  as  the  eternal 


'"Life,"  p.  506.     *  "  Life,"  p.. 


507. 


426  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

Son  of  God,  the  friend  of  the  poor,  and  the  Saviour 
of  all  men." ' 

Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  of  Princeton,  is  said  to  have 
remarked  of  Mr.  Beecher,  "  Whatever  fault  men  find 
with  his  head,  his  heart  is  right." 

It  can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  Mr.  Beecher  under- 
valued systematic  theology,  although  he  studied  it 
more  carefully  than  most  people  have  imagined.  It 
was  ever  his  habit  to  have  some  book  of  theology 
within  his  reach  during  his  long  lecture  tours.  The 
complaint  that  Mr.  Beecher's  later  teaching  was 
"substantially  unbiblical  in  tone"  is  a  very  grave 
indictment  which  will  be  earnestly  disputed  by  many. 
Doubtless  his  later  theology  was  unduly  colored  by 
his  reading  of  Herbert  Spencer  and  his  enthusiastic 
advocacy  of  evolutionary  theories.  Even  his  earlier 
preaching  seemed  to  many  unbiblical  in  tone,  because 
of  its  originality,  novelty  of  emphasis,  and  freedom 
from  many  of  the  conventionalities.  But  this  is  to 
be  said,  that  no  one  has  a  right  to  estimate  Mr. 
Beecher  by  any  fragmentary  and  sporadic  reading  of 
him.  Only  a  large  acquaintance  is  a  just  acquaint- 
ance. The  critic  is  often  tempted  to  say  that  his 
preaching  lacked  this  or  that  important  element,  but 
reading  on  he  finds  what  he  thought  was  wanting. 
Mr.  Beecher's  sermons  would  doubtless  be  more  satis- 
factory to  the  student  if  his  statements  were  more 
fully  qualified  and  balanced  here  and  there,  but  this 


1   "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  88. 

1  "  Current  Religious  Perils,"  Boston  Monday  Lectures,  Joseph 
Cook,  1888,  p.  134. 


NEW    LIGHT    ON    OLD    PROBLEMS.  427 

was  not  Mr.  Beecher's  way,  neither  was  it  the  way  of 
Paul  or  of  Jesus. 

It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Beecher  did  not  count  as  a 
large  help  to  evangelistic  work  in  his  later  years, 
partly  because  of  the  doubt  with  which  his  theological 
position  was  popularly  regarded,  and  partly  because 
all  of  his  energies  were  taxed  with  labors  not  directly 
evangelistic,  and  partly,  it  would  seem  from  a  lessen- 
ing of  some  of  the  elements  and  forces  in  that 
strenuous  faith  which  had  early  made  him  an  earnest 
and  whole-souled  revivalist.  It  was  felt  by  many 
that  his  mind  had  turned  too  exclusively  to  the 
gentler  and  more  generous  aspects  of  the  Gospel, 
and  it  is  probable  that  his  championship  of  what 
he  deemed  theological  reform  diverted  his  soul  in 
some  measure  from  evangelistic  effort. 

Did  he  overvalue  the  new  light  which  he  had 
gained  from  evolution  ?  In  a  letter  written*  in  1886 
to  Mr.  Alfred  Rose,  editor  of  The  Pulpit  of  To-day, 
consenting  to  the  publication  of  his  sermons  in 
pamphlet  form,  Mr.  Beecher  said  :  "  It  may  be  that  it 
is  a  sign  of  advancing  years  that  just  now  I  am  more 
willing  to  have  them  published  than  I  ever  was 
before.  But,  to  me,  it  seems  as  if  God's  Kingdom 
was  opening  to  me  and  in  me  more  than  ever  before, 
and  my  heart  runs  deeper  than  ever  before.  I  do  not 
feel  that  I  am  a  prophet,  or  that  I  am  opening  a  new 
dispensation  or  creating  a  new  theology,  but  I  feel 
that  I  am  a  forerunner  of  the  great  outpouring  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  on  earth  and  that  we  are  near  the 
time  when  a  great  and  glorious  advance  in  religious 
experience  will  be  disclosed.  I  have  a  zeal  for  the 
coming  Kingdom  of  God.      I  would  that  I  could  do 


428  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

more  than  cry,  '  Prepare  ye   the  way  of   the  Lord,' 
but  I  am  unspeakably  grateful  that  I  can  do  that."1 

Mr.  Beecher's  contributions  to  theological  progress 
were  doubtless  considerable  What  he  wrote  on 
Evolution,  if  appearing  to-day  for  the  first  time, 
would  excite  less  adverse  criticism  than  fell  on  his 
utterances  at  that  time.  It  was  his  misfortune,  as 
a  theological  leader,  partly  from  his  temperament 
and  partly  from  circumstances,  to  be  always  success- 
ful in  stirring  up  such  an  amount  of  controversy  that 
his  theological  opinions  were  rarely  estimated  at 
their  true  value.  Whatever  truths  he  may  have  over- 
looked or  misunderstood,  and  however  marked  his 
failure  to  prophesy  according  to  what  may  be 
deemed  the  right  proportion  of  faith,  he  was  a  true 
pioneer  of  the  larger  and  more  Christlike  Christianity 
of  the  future.  Whatever  his  mistakes,  it  will  be 
difficult  to  find  any  other  man  of  his  age  who  covered 
a  larger  area  in  the  whole  domain  of  truth  than 
did  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 


1  From  T.  J.  Ellitwood's  "  Reminiscences.' 


CHAPTER    XLII. 

PULPIT    THUNDERER    AND    PLUMED    KNIGHT. 

Mr.  Beecher's  most  important  relations  to  political 
life  in  his  later  years  were  connected  with  the  Presi- 
dential campaign  of  1884,  when  he  gave  his  great 
influence  for  the  election  of  Governor  Cleveland.  He 
had  spoken  with  unequaled  power  for  the  election  of 
Fremont,  in  1856,  and  Lincoln,  in  i860.  Plymouth 
Church  had  been  thronged  Sunday  evenings  with 
excited  multitudes  in  1864,  when  he  plead  for  the 
reelection  of  the  honest  and  far-sighted  chief  magis- 
trate whose  hand  on  the  helm  of  State  had  been 
so  steady  and  strong.  He  had  favored  Grant  in  1868 
and  1872;  had  spoken  for  Hayes  in  1876  and  for  Gar- 
field in  1880.  He  had  taken  an  active  part  in  attack- 
ing the  corrupt  judges  of  New  York  City  in  1868-9, 
and  had  worked  faithfully  for  good  government  in 
Brooklyn. 

As  the  questions  which  led  to  the  war,  and  were 
entailed  by  it,  had  been  largely  settled,  and  settled 
right,  Mr.  Beecher's  attitude  toward  the  Republican 
party  became  more  independent.  As  the  chief  differ- 
ences between  the  leading  parties  of  the  United  States 
had  to  do  with  the  protective  tariff,  and  Mr.  Beecher 
was  a  pronounced  free-trader,  his  alliance  with  the 
Republicans  grew  less  firm.     He  was  greatly  pleased 


43°  HENRY    WARD     3EECHER. 

with  the  unexpected  wisdom  shown  by  Mr.  Arthur  in 
the  Presidential  office,  and  earnestly  desired  his  nomi- 
nation by  the  Republicans  in  1884.  He  was  griev- 
ously disappointed  when  the  Republicans  presented 
the  name  of  Mr.  Blaine,  whom  he  had  come  to  dis- 
trust. He  also  felt  that  many  of  those  who  were 
most  prominent  in  supporting  that  brilliant  but 
unfortunate  leader,  represented  the  corrupter  elements 
of  the  Republican  party.  The  nomination  by  the 
Democrats  of  Governor  Cleveland,  whom  he  had  come 
to  admire,  made  it  possible  for  him  to  break  away 
from  his  old  affiliations. 

Mr.  N.  D.  Pratt,  in  his  reminiscences,  writes:  "  Mr. 
Beecher  was  personally  opposed  to  Blaine,  honestly 
believing  him  unfit  for  the  Presidency.  In  conversa- 
tion with  him  in  April  of  that  year  he  told  me  that  if 
Mr.  Blaine  was  nominated  it  would  split  the  Republi- 
can party.  An  admirer  of  Mr.  Blaine  and  a  believer 
in  him,  as  I  was,  it  seemed  intolerable  to  think  of  Mr. 
Beecher  opposing  him.  When  he  was  nominated, 
Mr.  Beecher  was  for  a  long  time  silent.  R.  W.  Ray- 
mond wrote  me  during  the  campaign  that  he  thought 
that  Mr.  Beecher's  purpose  was  to  be  silent  and  nut 
to  oppose  Mr.  Blaine.  But  injudicious  friends  kept 
after  him  and  were  not  satisfied  with  his  silence,  but 
seemed  determined  to  make  him  speak  for  the  Repub- 
lican candidate.  Finally  many  injudiciously  threat- 
ened him  that  if  he  went  on  the  stump  for  Cleveland 
they  would  rake  up  his  old  trouble.  This  stirred  the 
lion  within  him,  and  he  took  the  platform  for  the 
Democratic  candidate." 

"  As  did  thousands  of  his  friends,  I  wrote  a  long 
letter  to  Mr.  Beecher  and  besought  him  not  to  let  his 


PULPIT    THUNDERER  AND    PLUMED  KNIGHT.         43 1 

friends  have  the  bitter  memory  of  him,  perhaps  in 
the  last  campaign  in  which  he  might  engage,  advo- 
cating the  defeat  of  the  grand  old  Republican  party 
for  which  he  had  done  so  much  in  years  past.  Mr. 
Beecher  heeded  none  of  these  letters,  and  all  of  us  who 
believed  in  him  felt  that  his  course  was  certainly 
taken  after  conscientious  and  earnest  deliberation. 
He  was  mistaken  in  his  judgment  of  Mr.  Blaine,  and 
I  cannot  help  believing  that,  if  he  had  lived  to  wit- 
ness the  wise,  conservative,  statesmanlike  course  of 
Mr.  Blaine  while  in  charge  of  the  State  Department 
during  the  Harrison  administration,  he  would  have 
admitted  that  he  had  misjudged  him,  for  no  one  was 
quicker  to  correct  an  error  than  Mr.  Beecher." 

Believing  earnestly  that  Cleveland  would  make  a 
safe  and  honest  President,  discerning  in  him  those 
qualities  which  have  given  him  such  phenomenal  suc- 
cess as  a  political  leader,  and  believing,  after  honest 
and  careful  inquiry  that  Mr.  Cleveland  had  been 
maliciously  slandered  as  to  his  private  life,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  entered  with  great  zeal  into  the  cam- 
paign. That  zeal  was  inspired  by  some  of  the  strong- 
est feelings  and  bitterest  memories  of  his  life.  "  When 
in  the  gloomy  night  of  my  own  suffering,  I  sounded 
every  depth  of  sorrow,  I  vowed  that  if  God  would 
bring  the  day-star  of  Hope,  I  would  never  suffer 
brother,  friend,  or  neighbor  to  go  unfriended  should 
a  like  serpent  seek  to  crush  him.  That  oath  I  will 
regard  now,  because  I  know  the  bitterness  of  venomous 
lies.  I  will  stand  against  infamous  lies  which  seek  to 
sting  to  death  an  upright  man  and  magistrate.  Men 
counsel  me  to  prudence  lest  I  stir  again  my  own 
griefs.     No,  I  will  not  be  prudent.     If  I  refuse  to  in* 


432  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

terpose  the  shield  of  well-placed  confidence  between 
Governor  Cleveland  and  the  swarm  of  liars  that  nuz- 
zle in  the  mud  or  sling  arrows  from  ambush,  may  my 
tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth  and  my  right 
hand  forget  its  cunning.  I  will  imitate  the  noble 
example  set  by  Plymouth  Church  in  the  day  of  my 
calamity.  They  were  not  ashamed  of  my  bonds. 
They  stood  by  me  with  God-sent  loyalty.  It  was  a 
heroic  deed.  They  have  set  my  duty  before  me  and 
I  will  imitate  their  example."1 

The  campaign  of  1884  was  one  of  unparalleled  per- 
sonal bitterness.  The  friends  who  knew  Mr.  Blaine 
most  intimately  felt  that  the  conduct  of  some  of  his 
opponents  was  an  outrage  on  that  chivalrous,  patri- 
otic, and  high-minded  statesman.  The  Hon.  Nelson 
Dingley,  Jr.,  has  written  :  "The  unjust  and  bitter 
criticism  and  personal  defamation  to  which  he  was 
subjected  in  some  quarters  from  the  time  it  became 
known  in  1876  that  he  was  an  aspirant  for  the  Presi- 
dency, seemed  like  a  burlesque  to  those  who  inti- 
mately knew  Mr.  Blaine,  who  understood  the  perfect 
purity  and  integrity  of  his  private  life,  the  nobility  of 
his  aims  and  purposes,  and  the  magnanimity  and 
kindness  of  his  nature."2 

During  that  acrimonious  campaign  of  1884,  many 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  truest  friends  regretted  that,  while 
manifesting  such  a  noble  and  chivalrous  sympathy 
for  one  of  the  maligned  candidates,  he  had  only  bit- 
ter and  depreciative  words  for  the  other  candidate 
who,  as  they  believed,  was  equally  worthy  and  patri- 
otic, and  even  more  fiercely  maligned.     It  seemed  to 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  578.     2  The  Independent,  February  2,  1 893. 


PULPIT    THUNDERER   AND    PLUMED    KNIGHT.        433 

them  strange  that,  while  Mr.  Blaine  was  forced,  after 
having  been  vindicated  in  the  judgment  of  his  peers, 
to  fight  for  all  that  makes  life  dear  and  sacred,  and  also 
that,  when  the  chief  hold  that  his  enemies  had  over  him 
came  from  his  own  private  letters,  Mr.  Beecher,  with 
his  similar  past  experience,  appeared  to  have  forgotten 
for  the  time  both  charity  and  magnanimity. 

Since  1884,  Cleveland  and  Blaine  have  risen  higher 
and  higher  in  the  esteem  of  their  countrymen.  Polit- 
ical friends  and  foes  alike  applauded  Mr.  Blaine's 
grand  career  in  the  Department  of  State,  and  mourned 
his  death  as  that  of  the  most  inspiring  and  thoroughly 
American  leader  since  Lincoln.  Beecher's  failure  to 
appreciate  what  was  great  and  noble  in  Mr.  Blaine  is 
only  another  evidence  of  that  poor  judgment  of  men 
which  sometimes  had  brought  him  into  sorest  per- 
sonal trouble.  But  it  should  be  remembered  by  the 
most  ardent  friends  of  the  Plumed  Knight  that,  how- 
ever extravagant  Mr.  Beecher's  denunciations  of  Mr. 
Blaine  may  have  been,  they  were  surpassed  on  an 
earlier  occasion  by  Mr.  Beecher's  condemnation  of  him- 
self. Some  of  Mr.  Blaine's  misfortunes,  like  Beecher's, 
arose  from  intimate  association  with  unworthy  friends, 
and  it  would  have  only  been  charitable  in  the  great 
preacher  to  have  remembered  that  when  Mr.  Blaine's 
conduct  was  officially  investigated  his  brave  and 
manly  explanation  was  at  that  time  generally  ac- 
cepted, even  by  bitter  foes,  as  ample  vindication. 

Remembering  the  safe  course  which  Mr.  Cleveland 
has  pursued,  it  is  hard  to-day  to  realize  how  deep 
and  wide-spread  was  the  alarm  over  his  possible 
election,  and  how  fierce  was  the  antagonism  to  Mr. 
Beecher  on  the  part  of  many  of  his  friends  in  1884. 
28 


434  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

Plymouth  Church  was  threatened  with  disruption. 
Nearly  all  the  members  sided  against  their  pastor. 
As  usual  in  the  great  crises  of  his  life,  Mr.  Beecher 
was  repeatedly  informed  that  he  had  ruined  himself 
and  his  influence.  It  required  all  his  stubborn  cour- 
age, backed  by  a  thorough  conviction  that  he  was 
right,  to  take  and  maintain  the  position  which  he 
assumed,  outside  of  the  Republican  ranks.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that,  in  the  even  balance  of  voters  in 
the  State  of  New  York,  it  was  Mr.  Beecher's  influence 
that  brought  defeat  to  the  party  which  included  most 
of  his  warmest  friends.  Many  of  his  former  sup- 
porters were  so  indignant  that  they  professed  to  be- 
lieve all  that  his  enemies  had  ever  said  against  him! 
He  went  to  his  death  unforgiven  by  them. 

Calmer  judgments  will  prevail.  The  bitterness  of 
personal  partisanship  will  give  way  to  truer  estimates 
both  of  the  Pulpit  Thunderer  and  of  the  Plumed 
Knight.  Whatever  his  mistakes,  his  services  to  Lib- 
erty will  keep  green  for  ever  the  laurel  on  the  grave 
of  the  one,  and,  standing  by  the  tomb  of  the  other, 
men  will  recall  that,  whatever  his  faults,  he  was 
buried,  amid  a  Nation's  proud  tears,  in  an  honored 
sepulchre;  that  he  was  the  American  who  taught  his 
countrymen  to  believe  in  themselves  and  their  impe- 
rial destiny,  and  that,  as  the  pioneer  and  chief  pro- 
moter of  commercial  relations  and  international 
friendship  among  the  peoples  of  the  Western  Hemi 
sphere,  he  holds  the  same  historic  position  toward  the 
Greater  America  that  Chatham  held,  more  than  a 
century  ago,  toward  the  Greater  Britain. 


CHAPTER    XLIII. 

LAST   VIEW   OF   THE   OLD    BATTLEFIELD. 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  Mr.  Beecher,  both  in 
America  and  in  England,  to  be  a  messenger  of  peace 
and  good  will  as  well  as  an  apostle  of  righteousness. 
Having  fought  with  English  mobs  in  1863,  it  was  his 
lot  twenty-four  years  later  to  know  all  of  the  delights 
of  a  royal  English  welcome. 

It  was  through  the  urgent  persuasions  of  Mr.  James 
B.  Pond,  his  lecture-agent,  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
was  induced  to  make  this  final  visit  to  "  Our  Old 
Home."  Accompanied  by  Mrs.  Beecher,  he  sailed  in 
the  Etruria  on  the  19th  of  June,  1886,  and  three  thou- 
sand people  from  Plymouth  Church,  full  of  loyal 
enthusiasm,  went  down  the  harbor  to  give  him  a 
loving  farewell. 

For  four  days  he  suffered  from  his  usual  sickness, 
but  on  his  birthday,  the  24th  of  June,  when  he  was 
seventy-three  years  of  age,  he  was  able  to  appear  on 
deck  and  was  showered  with  birthday  cards  and  let- 
ters which  had  been  reserved  for  that  time. 

Landing  in  Liverpool,  he  spent  a  quiet  Sunday  un- 
recognized in  a  great  congregation.  On  the  follow- 
ing day  he  heard  a  very  powerful  and  luminous 
speech  on  the  Home-Rule  question  by  Mr.  Gladstone. 


436  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

At  the  close  of  it  he  was  presented  to  the  English 
statesman,  and,  complimenting  his  address,  he  said: 
"  I  have  no  words  to  express  myself  in  regard  to  its 
excellence."  To  this  Mr.  Gladstone  replied:  "Cer- 
tainly you  are  a  good  judge  of  such  efforts."  Mr. 
Beecher  was  a  believer  in  Home  Rule,  and,  from  an 
American  standpoint,  the  question  at  issue  seemed  to 
him  as  simple  as  A  B  C.  Earnest  efforts  were  made 
to  induce  him  to  speak  on  the  burning  Irish  question 
during  the  great  campaign  when  the  Grand  Old  Man 
met  with  such  a  memorable  reverse,  but  he  resolutely 
declined. 

In  London  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Beecher  were  the  guests 
of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Parker  at  their  home  in  Daleham 
Gardens.  On  Thursday  morning,  July  1st,  he  at- 
tended the  City  Temple  and  heard  a  noble  sermon 
on  Job.  At  the  close  of  the  sermon,  Dr.  Parker  pre- 
sented his  illustrious  friend,  saying:  "  Last  week  there 
was  in  England  one  Grand  Old  Man;  to-day  there  are 
two  of  them."  Mr.  Beecher  was  received  with  en- 
thusiasm. He  spoke  very  simply  and  tenderly,  and 
closed  with  a  touching  and  sympathetic  prayer.  Mr. 
Beecher  said,  in  a  letter,  "  If  I  had  ten  times  the  (self) 
appreciation  which  I  have,  I  must  have  been  satisfied 
with  my  public  reception.  The  great  dailies  an- 
nounced my  arrival  with  leading  editorials  of  all 
kinds;  letters  pour  in  by  the  bushel.  Pond  received 
seventy  on  a  single  morning.  Dr.  Parker  had  letters 
for  me  at  Queenstown,  and  called  on  me  at  once  in 
London.  I  am  to  lunch  with  him  to-day  (Friday, 
July  2d);  go  to  the  Lord  Mayor's  dinner  at  seven; 
invited  to  Mr.  Phelps's  (our  Minister)  next  Monday. 
On  to-day  week  a  dinner  is  to  be  given  me  to  which 


LAST   VIEW   OF    THE    OLD    BATTLEFIELD.  437 

eminent  men  of  all  ranks  are  to  come  and  various 
other  attentions  are  preparing."  ' 

He  was  pleased  to  learn  that  the  second  edition  of 
his  "Evolution  and  Religion"  had  been  sold,  and 
that  a  third  was  on  hand.  It  was  a  happy  surprise  to 
find  that  he  was  better  known  in  England  even  than 
America;  that  his  sermons  were  more  widely  circu- 
lated and  read,  and  that  even  the  cab-drivers  and 
boys  on  the  street  recognized  his  face. 

Mr.  Beecher's  first  sermon  was  in  the  City  Temple, 
and  the  congregation  far  overpassed  the  seating 
capacity  of  the  church.  The  sermon  was  one  of  great 
power.  The  newspapers  were  somewhat  startled  by 
its  occasional  quaintness  of  expression  and  more  than 
occasional  humorousness.  On  July  9th,  a  banquet 
was  given  to  Mr.  Beecher  at  the  Hotel  Metropole  at 
which  eighty  well  known  Englishmen  and  Americans 
sat  down.  The  addresses  were  full  of  enthusiasm, 
and  Mr.  Beecher's  response  was  such  as  he  only  could 
make. 

On  July  nth,  he  preached  for  Dr.  Allon,  in  the 
Union  Chapel  at  Islington.  The  great  church  was 
thronged,  and  many  were  turned  away.  In  the  after- 
noon he  attended  service  in  Westminster  Abbey  by 
special  invitation,  and  called  upon  Dean  Bradley 
where  he  met  a  number  of  English  clergymen.  In  X 
the  Jerusalem  Chamber  he  said:  "I  am  struck  with 
awe.  No  room  has  greater  interest  for  me,  unless  it 
be  the  'Upper  Room.'"  He  was  entertained  by 
Henry  Irving  at  his  home  in  Hammersmith,  London, 
and  he  thought  Mr.   Irving's    place    "  The    Grange " 


1  "  Summer  in  England  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  p.  19. 


438  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

was  the  only  place  surpassing  his  own  in  Peekskill 
that  he  had  ever  seen. 

The  famous  Dr.  Clifford,  editor  of  The  Baptist,  said 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  in  London:  "  Beecher 
must  be  heard  to  be  fairly  judged.  One  chief  charm 
and  central  inspiring  force  is  the  man.  The  whole 
soul  of  the  man  lives  in  his  preaching.  There  is  no 
vaporous  rhetoric,  no  glittering  phrase-making,  no 
mere  embroidery  of  speech,  but  overwhelming  spirit- 
ual reality,  a  life  that  has  been  lived  with  God,  and 
speaks  as  if  from  the  divine  presence,  strong  in  soul- 
forces  of  unaffected  goodness,  unclouded  faith,  and 
the  large-hearted  love  of  men,  a  blending  and  inter- 
fusing of  high  moral  and  intellectual  qualities,  which 
fills  you  with  a  sense  and  emotion  of  the  marvelous. 
As  I  meditated  on  what  I  heard,  I  constantly  recalled 
the  wealth  of  ideas  of  John  Foster,  the  large  views  of 
Robertson,  the  rich  fancy  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  the  wit 
and  shrewd  humor  of  Thomas  Fuller,  the  spirituality 
of  Thomas  a  Kempis  and  the  burning  love  of  the 
Apostle  John."  ' 

Mr.  Beecher  preached  in  Bradford,  Liverpool,  Car- 
lisle, Glasgow,  Edinburgh,  Scarborough,  Torquay, 
Brighton,  and  several  times  in  London.  Perhaps  the 
most  remarkable  reception  which  he  received  was 
given  by  the  London  Congregational  Board  in 
Memorial  Hall,  September  26th.  On  October  15th, 
he  gave  an  address  to  theological  students  in  the  City 
Temple.  There  were  six  hundred  of  these,  besides 
more  than  six  hundred  ministers,  who  listened  to  his 
address. 

1  *'  A  Summer  in  England  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher,*'  pp.  37-38. 


LAST   VIEW   OF   THE   OLD    BATTLEFIELD.  439 

His  first  lecture  was  given  in  Exeter  Hall,  London, 
on  July  19th.  He  had  not  spoken  in  Exeter  Hall  since 
October,  1863,  and  that  was  under  vastly  different 
circumstances.  In  this  address  he  said:  "  If  England 
is  not  proud  of  America,  why,  then,  the  latter  will 
make  her  so."  Canon  Farrar,  Canon  Fleming,  and 
many  other  well-known  preachers  of  England  heard 
this  first  lecture  on  "  The  Reign  of  the  Common 
People."     The  occasion  was  deemed  a  triumph. 

It  is  needless  to  recall  all  the  incidents  of  his  last 
summer  in  Great  Britain  in  order  to  give  an  impres- 
sion of  the  great  cordiality  with  which  he  was  received 
in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  "  Between  the 
4th  of  July  and  the  21st  of  October,  fifteen  and  one- 
half  weeks,  Mr.  Beecher  preached  seven  times,  gave 
nine  public  addresses,  and  delivered  fifty-eight  lec- 
tures. For  the  fifty-eight  lectures  he  cleared  the  sum 
of  eleven  thousand  six  hundred  dollars,  net  of  all 
expenses  for  himself  and  Mrs.  Beecher,  from  the  day 
they  sailed  from  New  York,  June  19th,  to  the  day 
they  arrived  at  their  home  in  Brooklyn,  October  31st. 
That  was  his  summer  vacation."  ' 

On  his  last  day  in  England,  October  i8th,  he  was 
given  a  reception  by  the  Liverpool  Congregational 
Board,  and  one  of  the  addresses  was  made  by  Rev. 
Charles  A.  Berry,  of  Wolverhampton,  with  whom  Mr. 
Beecher  was  so  greatly  pleased  that  he  marked  him 
out  for  his  own  successor.  Within  about  a  year  from 
that  time  Mr.  Berry  was  called  to  the  pastorate  of 
Plymouth  Church,  but  declined  the  invitation. 

Dr.  Parker,  whose  kindnesses  to  Mr.  Beecher  were 

1  "  A  Summer  in  England  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher,"  p.  122. 


44°  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

incessant,  and  to  whom  Mr.  Beecher's  heart  had  gone 
out  with  strong  tenderness,  has  given  a  report  of  the 
great  American's  reception  in  England.  Wherever 
he  spoke  the  largest  churches  were  entirely  inade- 
quate for  the  accommodation  of  the  people  who  com- 
pletely blocked  all  the  approaches.  Mr.  Beecher 
himself  was  simply  amazed  at  the  "  unanimity  and 
extent  of  the  recognition  of  his  ministry  by  pastors, 
students,  and  preachers  all  over  the  Christian  com- 
munity. In  many  a  group  of  ministers  I  have  seen 
Mr.  Beecher  standing  as  a  father,  giving  and  receiv- 
ing blessing." 

"  He  was  hospitably  entertained  by  the  American 
residents  of  London  and  the  provinces,  also  by  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  London,  the  London  Congregational 
Board,  an  Association  of  Ministers  in  Glasgow,  the 
Congregational  District  Board  of  Liverpool,  and  by  a 
General  Meeting  of  Ministers  in  Belfast;  it  will  be 
further  proved  when  I  tell  you  that  the  Right  Hon. 
William  E.Gladstone  invited  Mr.  Beecher  to  hospital- 
ity, and  that,  amongst  those  who  wrote  to  him, 
alluded  to  his  services,  welcomed  him,  and  in  some 
other  way  expressed  their  interest  in  him  were  Lord 
Iddesleigh,  the  Dean  of  Westminster,  Dean  of  Canter- 
bury, Archdeacon  Farrar,  Canon  Wilberforce,  Canon 
Fleming,  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  Ellen  Terry, 
Henry  Irving,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  George  Jacob 
Holyoake,  Prof.  Tyndall,  Herbert  Spencer,  and 
innumerable  members  of  Parliament."1 

When  in  England  in  1886  he  wrote:  "  I  want  to 
come  home.     I  have  wandered  enough.     I  cannot  say 

1 "  Parker's  Eulogy,"  p.  24. 


LAST    VIEW    OF    THE    OLD    BATTLEFIELD.  441 

I  have  rested  enough  for  I  have  been  kept  very  busy. 
I  long  every  year  to  lay  down  my  tasks  and  depart. 
It  is  not  a  judgment  formed  on  reasonable  grounds. 
It  is  simply  a  quiet  longing  of  the  spirit,  a  brooding 
desire  to  be  through  with  my  work,  although  I  am 
willing  to  go  on,  if  need  be."1 


1  Knox's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  521. 


CHAPTER   XLIV. 

NIGHT    COMETH    AND    THE    ETERNAL    MORNING. 

Mr.  Beecher's  work  was  nearly  over.  Though 
returning  in  apparently  vigorous  health,  his  brain 
had  had  no  rest.  The  Common  Council  of  Brooklyn 
voted  him  a  public  reception  but  he  declined  it. 
Plymouth  Church  was  decorated  with  flowers  and 
evergreen  vines  when  the  pastor  appeared  again 
behind  the  olive-wood  pulpit,  and  the  old  life  of  work 
was  renewed.  In  the  winter  he  took  up  once  more  the 
"  Life  of  Christ,"  and  also  made  a  contract  to  publish 
his  autobiography  before  July  ist,  1888.  He  was 
busy  every  week  with  letters  to  The  Christian  Union, 
and  preached  every  Sunday.  His  mind  worked 
vigorously  and  clearly  and  he  once  said  of  the  "  Life 
of  Christ":  "No  man  could  in  a  lifetime  write  all  I 
now  see  ;  how  can  I  put  it  into  one  book  ? " 

Conversing  with  an  English  clergyman,  shortly 
before  his  final  illness,  with  regard  to  the  completion 
of  his  book,  Mr.  Beecher  fell  into  a  reverie,  and,  look- 
ing out  of  the  window,  he  said  :  "  Finish  the  Life  of 
Christ.  Finish  the  Life  of  Christ.  Who  can  finish 
the  Life  of  Christ?  it  cannot  be  finished." 

He  was  soon  to  be  with  his  Lord.  On  the  3d 
of  March  he    seemed  perfectly  well.     Mrs.    Beecher 


NIGHT  COMETH  AND  THE  ETERNAL  MORNING.      443 

had  planned  to  sail  for  Florida  on  the  8th 
of  that  month.  On  the  3d  he  went  with  his 
wife  on  a  shopping  trip  to  New  York.  Mrs. 
Beecher  said  :  "  I  never  knew  my  husband  so  lively, 
tender,  or  joyous  before,  or  not  in  a  long  time."  At 
nine  o'clock  that  night  he  retired  feeling  weary. 
This  was  an  hour  earlier  than  usual.  Mrs.  Beecher 
was  busy  writing  until  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and,  finding  her  husband  asleep  at  that  time  she 
decided  to  lie  down  in  an  adjoining  room.  In  a  few 
hours  she  was  aroused,  and  going  to  Mr.  Beecher's 
bedside  found  him  suffering  with  extreme  nausea. 
He  said  it  was  only  a  sick  headache.  He  was  soon 
sleeping  again  and  was  aroused  by  neither  the  rising 
bell  nor  the  breakfast  bell. 

He  slept  through  that  day,  and  not  until  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  was  Dr.  Searle,  his  physician, 
sent  for.  The  doctor  shook  him  by  the  shoulder  and 
he  slowly  aroused  himself.  Mrs.  Beecher  said  : 
"  Father,  you  must  get  up  and  dress.  It  is  afternoon 
and  you  will  have  to  go  to  prayer-meeting.  Do  you 
hear  me?"  "Yes,  I  hear,  but  I  don't  want  to  get  up. 
I  will  not  go  to  prayer-meeting  to-night.  Tell  them 
"     But  here  he  fell  asleep  again. 

At  seven  the  doctor  returned  and  looked  grave. 
"Raise  your  hand,"  he  said.  "Can  you  raise  your 
hand  ?  "  "  I — can — raise — it — high — enough — to — hit 
— you."  The  lips  were  smiling,  the  tones  deep,  but 
the  hand  he  could  not  raise.  Mr.  Beecher  looked 
earnestly  upon  his  wife  and  the  doctor.  The 
physician's  grave  face  told  the  story,  and  Mr.  Beecher 
closed  his  eyes  "and  gave  the  hand  of  his  wife  a 
long,    strong,    and    earnest    pressure.       It    was    the 


444  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

realization  of  the  inevitable  ;  it  was  farewell.  He 
never  opened  his  eyes  again."  ' 

Drs.  Hammond  and  Helmuth  were  called  in  from 
New  York,  and  found  that  nothing  could  be  done  but 
to  wait  for  the  end.  Sunday  was  a  sad  and  anxious 
day  in  Plymouth  Church.  It  was  Communion  Sun- 
day. The  hush  of  the  solemn  service  was  broken  by 
sobs.  On  Monday  and  Tuesday  evenings  prayer-ser- 
vices were  held  in  the  lecture-room.  "  It  was  a 
noticeable  fact  that  no  one  prayed  for  the  pastor's 
recovery,  it  was  accepted  by  all  as  a  fact  unalterable, 
that  the  time  of  his  going  home  had  come,  and  not 
one  of  those  that  loved  him  would  have  called  him 
back."2 

"  When  the  end  approached  all  the  household  were 
gathered.  It  was  their  unanimous  wish  that  none 
but  themselves  and  the  physicians  should  be  present, 
but  the  wish  could  not  be  entirely  effected.  When 
the  end  came  all  of  the  Beecher  blood  knelt  or  stood 
around.  Not  one  of  them  shed  a  tear  or  gave  ex- 
pression to  a  sob  then  and  there.  The  supreme  self- 
control  was  in  obedience  to  Mr.  Beecher's  often- 
expressed  hope  and  wish  that  around  his  bed  of  release 
not  tears  should  fall  but  the  feeling  should  prevail 
as  with  those  who  think  of  a  soul  gone  to  its  crown- 
ing." 3 

Mr.  Beecher  died  on  Tuesday,  March  8,  1887,  at 
half  past  nine  o'clock. 

Mr.  Beecher  had  always  been  opposed  to  the  use  of 
crape,  deeming  it  a  pagan  symbol.  He  had  said, 
"  Provide  flowers  for  me  when  I  am  gone,"  and  within 


1  "  Life,"  p.  633.       q"  Life,"  pp.    634-635.       '  "  Life,"  p.  634. 


NIGHT  COMETH  AND  THE  ETERNAL  MORNING.       445 

ten  minutes  after  he  had  passed  from  earth  a  wreath 
of  roses  was  hung  upon  his  door. 

"  And  he  shall  wear  a  truer  crown 
Than  any  wreath  that  man  can  weave  him, 
*****  * 

God  accept  him,  Christ  receive  him." 

Probably  no  such  evidences  of  sorrow  have  ever 
been  shown  at  the  funeral  of  a  private  person  in 
America  as  accompanied  the  burial  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  It  had  been  his  wish  that  his  much-beloved 
friend,  Rev.  Charles  H.  Hall,  of  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  should  conduct  the  service  at  his 
funeral  hour.  He  had  been  a  brave  and  trusting 
friend  in  times  of  sorest  trial.  In  his  remarks  at  the 
house,  among  other  things,  Dr.  Hall  said:  ''There 
was  no  man  whom  I  ever  heard,  or  whose  works  I 
have  ever  read,  who  inspired  me  so  deeply  with  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  was  a  man  of 
men,  the  most  manly  man  I  ever  met,  but  he  was  also 
a  man  of  God  in  the  preeminent  sense  of  the  word." 

At  the  close  of  the  private  funeral  services  which 
were  held  at  the  house  on  Thursday,  Company  G.  of 
the  Thirteenth  Regiment  escorted,  as  guard  of  honor, 
the  body  of  Mr.  Beecher  to  the  Church  where  for 
thirty-seven  years  his  voice  had  spoken  to  all  man- 
kind. No  emblems  of  mourning  were  placed  among 
the  funeral  decorations,  but  flowers,  evergreens,  palms, 
and  twining  smilax  transformed  the  organ  and  the 
pulpit  and  the  platform  into  a  wilderness  of  splendor 
and  fragrance.  Mrs.  S.  V.  White  had  upholstered 
with  carnations,  roses,  and  smilax  the  chair  in  which 
the  pastor  had  sat  for  so  many  years.     "  The  coffin 


446  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

itself  was  entirely  covered  with  flowers,  lilies  of  the 
valley,  maidenhair  fern,  and  smilax." 

From  half  past  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  until 
ten  o'clock  at  night,  an  uninterrupted  throng  of  peo- 
ple passed  into  the  church  to  take  a  last  look  at  one 
who  had  never  feared  the  face  of  man,  and  who  had 
lived  his  life  bravely  and  truly  in  the  face  of  God  and 
of  the  people.  The  organ  was  played  now  and  then, 
and  appropriate  music  was  sung  during  nearly  twelve 
hours. 

On  Friday  those  who  were  personally  invited  were 
admitted  to  Plymouth  Church  for  the  public  serv- 
ices. Only  members  of  the  Church  and  those 
especially  asked,  including  some  of  the  most  distin- 
guished men  of  the  country,  eminent  ministers  of  all 
denominations,  including  several  Catholic  clergymen, 
were  admitted.  Business  was  suspended  in  Brooklyn 
during  the  hour  of  the  service,  all  the  schools — public 
and  private — the  courts  and  public  offices  in  Brook- 
lyn were  closed  by  order  of  the  City  Government. 
Great  throngs  attended  the  funeral  services  which 
were  held  in  four  other  churches,  the  First  Baptist 
Church,  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  the  Church  of 
the  Saviour,  and  the  Sands  Street  Methodist  Church, 
where  glowing  addresses  were  made  in  honor  of  one 
who  had  loved  all  Christians  and  all  men.  Rabbi 
Harrison  said  among  other  things:  "All  sects  re- 
vered him,  all  Churches  and  creeds  recognized  in  him 
the  incarnation  of  their  best  thought.  lie  stands  at 
the  head  of  his  age  and  his  fame  will  always  remain." 
Dr.  Talmage  thought  the  Colosseum  at  Rome,  which 
held  eighty  thousand  spectators,  would  have  been  in- 
sufficient to  accommodate  the  people  who  wished  to 


NIGHT  COMETH  AND  THE  ETERNAL  MORNING.       447 

do  honor  to  the  great  friend  of  humanity.  In  his 
address  at  the  funeral  Dr.  Hall  referred  very  feelingly 
to  the  unfinished  "  Life  of  Christ,"  and  reminded  his 
hearers  "  that,  though  the  English-speaking  race 
to-day  mourns  his  call  and  recognizes  its  loss,  Amer- 
icans feel  that  he  has  been  a  great  leader  or  adviser 
in  the  guidance  of  all  manner  of  substantial  interests, 
though  the  Legislature  of  the  State  has  paid  him  an 
unusual  honor — of  adjourning — as  his  right, though  the 
press  and  divines  and  orators  of  all  degrees  are  try- 
ing to  compass  the  mighty  theme  in  glowing  words, 
in  words  of  exulting  grief  that  we  have  had  him  with 
us  so  long — and  have  lost  him — yet,  that,  as  he  lies 
there  so  quiet,  we  may  look  at  him  as  one  who  had 
been,  through  all  and  in  all  things,  an  apostle  of  one 
supreme  thought,  a  preacher  of  the  everlasting  Gos- 
pel of  the  ever-living  Christ." 

Very  beautifully  Dr.  Hall  told  the  story  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  last  evening  in  Plymouth  Church  ;  how 
after  "  the  congregation  had  retired  from  it,  the 
organist  and  one  or  two  others  were  practising  the 

hymn — 

4 1  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say 
Come  unto  Me  and  rest.' 

'  Mr.  Beecher,  doubtless  with  that  tire  that  follows 
a  preacher's  Sunday  work,  remained  and  listened. 
Two  street  urchins  were  prompted  to  wander  into  the 
building  and  one  of  them  was  standing  perhaps  in  the 
position  of  the  boy  whom  Raphael  has  immortalized, 
gazing  up  at  the  organ.  The  old  man,  laying  his  hands 
on  the  boy's  head,  turned  his  face  upward  and  kissed 
him,  and,  with  his  arms  about  the  two,  left  the  scene 
of  his  triumphs,  his  trials,  and  his  successes  for  ever." 


448  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

"  It  was  a  fitting  close  to  a  grand  life, — the  old  man 
of  genius  and  fame  shielding  the  little  wanderers  ; 
great  in  breasting  traditional  ways  and  prejudices, 
great  also  in  the  gesture  so  like  him,  that  recognized, 
as  did  the  Master,  that  the  humblest  and  the  poorest 
were  his  brethren, — the  great  preacher  led  out  into 
the  night  by  the  little  nameless  waifs." 

After  the  close  of  Dr.  Hall's  address,  the  congrega- 
tion took  their  last  look  of  the  well-beloved  face 
which  they  had  seen  so  often  glowing  like  the  face  of 
the  great  leader  who  came  down  the  mountain  from 
the  presence  of  God.  Then  the  doors  of  the  church 
were  opened,  and  once  more  the  public  were  ad- 
mitted. The  grief-smitten  crowd  reached  in  a  line 
almost  down  to  Fulton  Ferry,  more  than  half  a  mile 
away.  Nearly  one  hundred  thousand  people,  by 
actual  count,  passed  by  the  sacred  coffin. 

On  Saturday,  the  12th  of  March,  the  body,  accom- 
panied by  about  fifty  persons,  including  the  officers 
and  prominent  members  of  the  Church,  was  taken  to 
Greenwood  Cemetery  where,  after  a  touching  prayer 
by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Halliday,  the  casket  was  placed  in 
the  vault.  Underneath  a  decoration  of  palms,  and 
amid  the  mourning  of  the  American  people,  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  was  at  rest. 

He  himself  had  always  said  that  dying  was  the 
best  part  of  life  to  those  who  live  worthily  ;  that 
death  was  as  blessed  as  bird-singing  in  spring  and 
sweet  as  flowers  ;  that  its  path  was  rosy,  and  royal, 
and  golden.  He  had  often  yearned  for  dying.  "  I 
have  drunk  at  many  a  fountain,  but  thirst  came 
again  ;  I  have  fed  at  many  a  bounteous  table,  but 
hunger   remained  ;    I   have   seen    many   bright    and 


NIGHT  COMETH  AND  THE  ETERNAL  MORNING.       449 

lovely  things,  but  while  I  gazed  their  luster  faded. 
There  is  nothing  here  that  can  give  me  rest,  but 
when  I  behold  Thee,  Oh  God,  I  shall  be  satisfied." 
"Our  foremost  citizen,"  as  Dr.  Chadwick  called  him, 
great  in  achievements,  great  in  character,  whose 
heart  had  brooded  with  tenderest  love  over  all  men, 
and  whose  fame  had  touched  all  horizons,  was  safe  at 
last  from  all  human  assault,  safe  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people,  at  home  in  the  bosom  of  God. 

Mr.  Beecher  incarnated  American  democracy  in 
all  its  higher  tendencies,  and  the  people  everywhere 
mourned  him.  In  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  through- 
out the  land,  the  pulpit,  on  the  Sunday  following 
his  death,  uttered  the  National  voice  in  regard  to  his 
transcendent  abilities  and  his  wide-reaching  services. 
As  Mr.  Beecher  had  touched  all  classes  of  American 
citizens,  so  his  death  was  mourned  by  all. 

Of  course,  words  of  criticism  were  frequent  enough. 
His  views  had  not  suited  exactly  the  views  of  any 
school  of  thought,  whether  in  politics  or  in  religion, 
but  he  had  a  great  hold  on  all  good  men  and  all  good 
men  had  a  share  in  him.  The  Union  League  Club 
and  many  other  clubs  expressed  their  grief  and 
admiration  in  suitable  words.  The  Clerical  Unions 
of  New  York,  Boston,  and  Chicago  paid  tribute  to 
the  illustrious  dead.  The  Clerical  Union  of  Brook- 
lyn, representing  many  denominations,  in  its  reso- 
lutions rehearsed  the  great  qualities  which  "  made 
him  supreme  among  the  preachers  and  orators  of  his 
time."  The  New  York  Legislature,  in  adjourning  on 
the  day  of  his  funeral,  declared  his  fame  one  of  the 
brightest  possessions  of  the  State. 


29 


CHAPTER    XLV. 


THIS    WAS    A    MAN. 


Even  his  enemies,  who  were  legion,  never  failed  to 
recognize  in  Mr.  Beecher  a  great  antagonist.  To  his 
friends,  he  was  as  good  as  he  was  great.  He  had  the 
power  of  turning  his  enemies  into  friends.  An  ex-Con- 
federate officer,  visiting  in  New  York,  who  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  hear  Beecher,  and  who  said,  "  It 
would  do  me  good  to  take  a  rifle  along  and  just  put  a 
bullet  through  him  as  he  stands  in  the  pulpit  pretend- 
ing to  preach  the  Gospel,"  went  with  the  Rev.  Frank 
Russell  to  Plymouth  Church  in  1865,  and  poured  out 
his  whispered  criticisms  at  almost  everything  he  saw 
and  heard.  He  was  not  subdued  by  the  singing;  he 
was  somewhat  quieted  by  the  prayer;  the  sermon 
awakened  a  great  struggle  in  his  mistaken  soul  and 
tears  came  to  his  eyes.  As  he  walked  to  the  ferry  he 
said:  "  I  swear  I  believe  I  have  been  egregiously 
mistaken  about  that  man."  The  next  Sunday  he  was 
introduced  to  Mr.  Beecher,  and  from  that  time  could 
not  endure  to  hear  a  word  spoken  against  him.1 

Mr.  George  W.  Cable,  said  of  him:  "He  united 
larger  proportions  of  strength  and  benevolence  than 
any  other  man  I  ever  knew."  He  was  beloved  by  the 
great  masses  of  the  American  people,  not  only  by  those 
of    New  England   blood,  but  equally  by   the  negro, 


1  Rev.  Frank  Russell,  "Life,"  p.  384. 


"THIS    WAS   A    MAN.  45 1 

the  Irish,  Jew,  German,  and  Catholic.  "  Towards 
the  Jews  he  acted  the  part  of  a  man  and  brother  in 
the  truest  sense."  ' 

Some  small  men  could  never  begin  to  understand 
Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He  was  so  various,  so  uncon- 
ventional, so  original,  so  unlike  themselves.  The 
difference  between  him  and  other  eminent  men  seemed 
to  be  partly  a  difference  in  abundance  of  life.  As 
.with  Phillips  Brooks,  he  was  affluent  with  animal, 
intellectual,  and  spiritual  life.  He  was  intensely  vital, 
intensely  human.  Mr.  Beecher  was  a  luxuriant  forest 
full  of  trees  of  all  sizes  and  shapes,  not  an  artificial 
French  garden  set  out  with  boxed  trees  and  laid  out 
in  geometric  forms.  It  is  easier  to  understand  men 
of  another  mould.  When  a  man  is  like  a  single  ever- 
green tree,  symmetrical,  simple,  and  scarcely  ever 
changing,  he  is  more  easily  comprehended. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  grandly  positive.  Abounding  in 
all  things,  his  cup  ran  over  and  sometimes  spilled 
over.  He  was  so  thoroughly  human  that  we  think  of 
him  as  one  of  ourselves,  entering  sympathetically  into 
the  spirit  of  our  common  life.  We  are  almost  sur- 
prised when  he  suddenly  towers  up  a  hero.  What 
Lowell  so  finely  sang  of  Lincoln  was  equally  true  of 
Mr.  Beecher. 

"  His  was  no  lonely  mountain  peak  of  mind, 
Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 
A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors  blind; 
Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level-lined, 
Fruitful  and  friendly  to  all  human  kind, 
Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven,  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars." 


1  Felix  Adler,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  97. 


452  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

It  is  easy  to  catalogue  the  qualities  which  he,  in  a 
large  measure,  illustrated;  to  speak  of  his  courage, 
enthusiasm,  tenderness,  versatility,  frankness,  genial- 
ity, magnetism,  philanthropy,  intensity,  mettlesome- 
ness,  patience,  modesty,  toilsomeness,  catholicity, 
tolerance,  sympathy,  common  sense,  unresentfulness, 
righteousness,  wrathfulness,  lovableness,  transparent 
purity,  unconventionality,  perennial  humor,  humility, 
loneliness,  mental  fertility,  comprehensiveness  o£ 
vision,  and  all  the  riches  of  his  prophetic  and  poetic 
gifts;  but  a  half  hour's  acquaintance  with  him  in  his 
best  mood,  whether  in  public  or  in  private,  is  worth 
more  than  all  such  cataloguing. 

It  was  the  man  rather  than  the  clergyman  that  i'..: 
people  recognized  and  loved.  "  He  seemed  to  me," 
said  General  Sherman,  "  more  like  an  army  comrade 
than  a  minister  of  the  Gospel."' 

Speaking  with  enthusiasm,  Grant  once  called  him 
"a  great  noble-hearted  boy."  His  life  was  war,  his 
heart  was  peace  and  love.  "  He  was  a  soldier  of  the 
church  militant,  but  his  warfare  was  with  human 
wrong  and  misery,  with  false  theories  of  life,  and 
poor  aims  and  ambitions."8 

Mr.  R,  W,  Raymond  said  of  him  :  "  I  never  met 
another  man  who  was  so  entirely  the  same  in  public 
and  in  private." 

From  whom  shall  we  learn  the  truth  about  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  unless  from  those  who  saw  him  most 
and  loved  him  most?  On  whom  does  the  light  of  a 
man's  character  cast  his  real  image  if  not  upon  his 


1  "  Memorial  Volume,"  p.  3. 

*  George  William  Curtis,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  21. 


"this  was  i  man.  453 

friends?  "The  simple  truth  is  that  no  experienced 
lawyer  who  knew  him  could  ever  have  failed  to  see 
that  nothing  but  the  utmost  courage,  candor,  and 
truthfulness  would  at  any  time  fit  the  character  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher.  .  .  .  For  any  counsel  to 
advise  him  to  utter  an  evasion,  much  less  a  false- 
hood, would  have  been  worse  than  a  crime — it 
would  have  been  an  unpardonable  blunder." 

"No  man  who  knew  Mr.  Beecher  intimately  could 
doubt  that  he  was  preeminently  a  man  of  God 
and  walked  with  God."" 

In  body,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  more  of  the 
English  than  of  the  American  type,  but  his  face  and 
brow  suggested  no  nationality.  They  were  the 
expression  of  his  own  mobile  spirit  and  lofty  genius. 
"The  modern  English  Broad  Church,"  says  Higgin- 
son,  "  aims  at  breadth  of  shoulders  as  well  as  of 
doctrines.  Our  American  saintship  also  has  begun 
to  have  a  body  to  it — a  body  of  divinity  indeed." 
Although  of  large  and  robust  vitality,  Mr.  Beecher's 
physical  health  was  not  perfect.  He  was  one  of 
those  civilized  men  who  need  to  take  wise  and 
thoughtful  care  of  themselves.  He  was  an  example 
to  all  preachers  in  the  thought  which  he  gave  to  the 
body.  He  was  abstemious,  never  a  very  hearty 
eater,  using  food  as  an  engineer  uses  fuel.  His 
physical  resources  were  enormous,  and  it  was  part  of 
his  religion  to  breathe  good  air  and  enjoy  sound 
sleep,  and  plenty  of  it,  to  take  good  food,  and  not 
too  much  of  it.     He  was  a  man  of  physical  courage 


1  "  Henry  Ward  Beecher — A  Memorial  Service,"  p.  29. 

2  Lyman  Abbott,  "  Life,"  p.  654. 


454  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

and  very  cool  in  times  of  peril.  He  once  killed  a 
mad  dog  with  a  single  stroke  of  an  axe.  Perhaps 
physical  courage  is  sometimes  a  help  to  moral 
courage.  "  It  seemed  as  easy  for  him  to  breast 
the  currents  of  popular  opinion,  and  to  obstruct 
the  force  of  heavy  tyrannies,  as  it  is  for  many  to  float 
on  the  changing  stream  of  the  one  or  to  be  instru- 
ments and  supporters  of  the  other."  ' 

He  kept  his  body  in  thorough  working  order.  "  I 
am  a  total  abstainer  both  in  belief  and  practice  I 
hold  that  no  man  in  health  needs,  or  is  the  better  for, 
alcoholic  stimulants."  Whatever  use  of  stimulants 
he  made  when  in  poor  health  was  "  occasional,  ex- 
ceptional, and  wholly  medicinal/'  At  public  dinners 
he  was  often  a  total  abstainer  from  food  and  drink,  his 
only  indulgence  being  a  drink  of  water.  Mrs.  Beecher 
says  that  when  not  so  deeply  interested  in  the  con- 
versation as  to  neglect  his  food,  he  ate — as  he  did 
everything  else — with  vigor  and  evident  enjoyment. 
"  He  well  understood  the  difference  between  good  and 
bad  cooking."  2 

When  seated  in  the  dining-room  of  the  Ebbitt  House, 
in  Washington  his  table  was  soon  surrounded  by 
many,  eager  to  have  a  word,  and  everybody  was  kept 
laughing,  as  he  had  a  theory  that  no  serious  subject 
should  ever  be  discussed  at  dinner. 

"  It  was  Mr.  Beecher's  custom  to  take  a  nap  every 
afternoon  for  an  hour  or  two,  whether  at  home  or 
abroad,  traveling  or  wherever  he  might  be.  I  have 
been  riding  on  the  train  with  him  when  he  would  talk 


Senator  George  F.  Edmunds,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  25. 
Mrs.  Beecher  in  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  March,  1892. 


"this  was  a  man.  455 

in  the  most  interesting  way,  drop  off  in  the  middle  of 
a  sentence  into  a  sound  sleep  and  sleep  for  some  lit- 
tle time.  He  told  me  once  that  one  secret  of  his  good 
health  was  his  ability  to  sleep  so  much,  and  that  he 
would  allow  nothing  to  deprive  him  of  his  sleep.  I 
was  once  at  dinner  on  Sunday,  at  his  home  in  Brook- 
lyn, and  after  dinner  he  took  me  to  his  two  studies, 
showing  me  the  various  points  of  interest  in  his  house, 
his  library,  his  writing-desk,  eta,  etc.,  and  some  of 
the  pictures  of  his  father,  of  whom  I  said,  he  looked 
like  a  statesman.  His  answer  was.  *  He  was  a  states- 
man.' Then,  the  hour  apparently  having  arrived  for 
his  nap,  in  the  most  courteous  manner  he  said  :  '  I 
hope  often  to  see  you  in  Brooklyn,  come  again,  come 
always,'  and  then  he  began  immediately  to  prepare 
for  his  afternoon  sleep  which  was  an  indication  to  me 
that  it  was  time  for  my  visit  to  draw  to  a  close."  2 

Gen.  Horatio  C.  King  thought  Mr.  Beecher  the  best 
traveling  companion  he  ever  had  known.  It  was  his 
good  fortune  to  be  with  him  two  weeks  on  a  famous 
lecture  tour  throughout  the  West.  "  He  always  spoke 
of  this  as  the  time  when  he  built  his  home  at  Peeks- 
kill  out  of  wind." 3 

Those  who  knew  him  well  found  that  he  was  as 
great  and  brilliant  in  conversation,  when  in  the  mood 
for  talk,  as  he  was  in  the  pulpit.  "  I  believe  that  Mr.  f 
Beecher's  finest  sayings  have  been  spoken  in  private. 
The  slightest  tinge  of  personal  vanity  would  render 
this  impossible."9  He  appears  to  have  had  some 
very  strong  friendships.     Among  the  men  to  whom 


1  N.  D.  Pratt's  "  Reminiscences." 

2  Knox's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  344. 

8  "  Life,"  p.  345 — Rev.  William  Burnet  Wright,  D.D. 


456  HENRY    WARD     FEECHER. 

he  was  most  drawn  out  was  Dr.  John  H.  Raymond,  his 
traveling  companion  of  1863. 

Whatever  he  studied  he  went  into  thoroughly.  "In 
reply  to  a  question  about  Herbert  Spencer,"  says 
Rev.  William  Burnet  Wright,  "  he  gave  me  an  account 
of  Spencer  and  his  writings,  with  a  wealth  of  bio- 
graphical details  and  a  knowledge  of  the  man's  entire 
system  which  would  have  been  remarkable  in  a  care- 
fully prepared  and  written  lecture.  I  have  often 
tested  him  in  the  same  way  on  other  themes,  only  to 
find  him  equally  well  informed  and  ready." 

Mr.  Beecher's  conscience  took  the  shape  and  quality 
and  expressed  the  force  and  range  of  his  understand- 
ing. It  was  unconventional,  original,  and  sensitive 
where  ordinary  men  are  insensitive,  and  tolerant,  flex- 
ible, and  courteous  where  narrower  understandings 
would  have  made  its  workings  hard  and  rigid.  There 
was  nothing  of  the  self-seeker  in  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
"  I  have  no  ambitions.  I  have  sought  no  laurels  ;  I 
have  deliberately  rejected  many  things  that  would 
have  been  consonant  to  my  taste.  I  remember  as  if 
it  were  yesterday,  when  I  laid  my  literary  ambition 
and  scholarly  desires  upon  the  altar  and  said:  If  I 
can  do  more  for  my  Master,  and  for  men,  by  my  style 
and  manner  of  working,  I  am  willing  to  work  in  a  sec- 
ondary way,  I  am  willing  to  leave  writing  behind  my 
back,  I  am  willing  not  to  carve  statues  of  beauty,  but 
to  do  what  would  please  God  in  the  salvation  of  men." 

A  missionary  among  the  Sioux  Indians  recalls  an 
incident  of  his  personal  kindness,  as  she  deemed  it. 
She  was  to  speak  to  his  people  Sunday  evening,  on 
her  work.  He  was  to  introduce  her  and  then  leave 
the  platform,  and   slip  away  to  hear  some  noted  Eng- 


"  THIS    WAS    A    MAN.  457 

lish  divine.  He  so  rarely  had  an  opportunity  of  hear- 
ing anybody  preach  that  he  wished  to  improve  it.  The 
missionary  was  rather  glad  of  the  absence  of  so  famous 
a  speaker,  but,  after  she  had  delivered  her  address,  the 
first  person  to  greet  her  with  a  cordial  shake  of  the 
hand  was  Mr.  Beecher,  who  said:  "You  see  I  did 
not  leave.  I  wanted  to  see  if  you  could  hold  your 
hearers,  and  I  became  so  interested  in  the  Indians 
that  I  could  not  leave." 

"  After  his  entirely  legitimate  observation,  at  one 
of  the  evening  prayer-meetings,  to  the  effect  that 
rather  than  countenance  or  support  mob-violence,  a 
man  ought  to  be  willing  to  forego  something  of  com- 
fort, and,  if  necessary,  live  on  a  dollar  a  day  and  get 
along  on  bread  and  water,  and,  for  a  change,  water 
and  bread,  I  believe  that  he  felt  that  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent, the  sympathetic  good  will  of  great  bodies  of 
working  men  had  been  withdrawn,  and  that  he  had 
been  in  a  sense  misrepresented  as  not  entirely  one  of 
them  in  every  reasonable  demand  that  they  might 
make.  I  recollect  one  Sabbath  that  he  referred  with 
sudden  and  heartfelt  eloquence  to  the  subject,  end- 
ing up  what  he  had  to  say  with  these  words:  'Men 
say  because  I  have  told  them  most  needful  truths  that 
I  am  not  on  the  side  of  the  working  man,  that  I  am 
not  his  friend.  If  I  am  not  the  friend  of  the  working 
man,  who  is  V  The  manner  in  which  the  words  were 
uttered  could  not  fail  to  impress  all  present  with  Mr. 
Beecher's  deep  conviction  that  if  it  were  not  for  his 
presence  in  the  world,  the  working  man  would  be 
friendless  indeed."  ' 


1  From  a   letter  by  W.  E.  Davenport,  Brooklyn. 


45^  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

There  were  flaws  enough,  doubtless,  in  this  man's 
character,  rough  spots  in  this  great  soul,  but,  seen  at 
his  best,  studied  at  times  when  most  good  men  would 
look  ugliest,  watched  when  attacked  by  those  whom 
he  loved,  aspersed  and  defiled  by  tongues  set  on  fire 
with  malice,  his  character  appears  so  radiant  with 
the  spirit  of  Him  who  breathed  forgiveness  from  the 
Cross,  that  it  has  large  claims  to  be  called  saintly.  I 
know  not  where  else,  among  the  great  men  of  this 
country,  to  find  in  one  nature  such  tremendous  out- 
bursts against  injustice  and  sin,  and  at  the  same  time 
an  equal  force  of  Christly  character.  The  Son  of 
Thunder  was  the  Apostle  of  Love. 

"  Great  natures,"  says  Lyman  Abbott,  "  have  great 
faults.  But  Mr.  Beecher's  were  only  faults — flaws  on 
the  surface — not  vices  that  corrupted  the  heart."  He 
was  not  always  wise  in  his  opinions,  and  often  far 
from  wise  in  presenting  them.  He  well  knew,  as  De- 
mosthenes said  in  his  Oration  on  the  Crown,  that 
"men  by  nature  listen  joyfully  to  slanderers  and  de- 
tainers," and  yet  even  this  knowledge  did  not  lead  him 
to  cultivate  the  virtue  of  prudence.  The  defects  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  character  were  as  conspicuous,  to  eyes 
that  search  for  defects,  as  his  virtues.  He  was  a  man 
of  superabundant  force,  and  valued  force  more  than 
symmetry  or  finish.  As  he  said  in  his  eulogy  on  Gen- 
eral Grant,  "  Men  without  faults  are  apt  to  be  men 
without  force.  A  round  diamond  has  no  brilliancy. 
Lights  and  shadows,  hills  and  valleys  give  beauty  to 
the  landscape.  The  faults  of  good  and  generous 
natures  are  often  overripe  goodness  or  the  shadows 
which  their  virtues  cast." 

It  may  have  been  an  exhibition  of  his  frank,  fearless, 


"this  was  a  man.  459 

and  unselfish  spirit  that  he  put  into  self-condemning 
letters,  which  could  be  used  to  ruin  him,  the  con- 
trition which  he  felt  for  the  misfortunes  he  had 
brought  to  a  friend's  household;  but  the  utter  lack  of 
foresight  which  this  manifested  must  be  condemned, 
as  the  sorrow  which  it  occasioned  fell  heavily  on 
innocent  and  trusting  thousands.  There  were  streaks 
of  coarser  grain  running  through  what  was  fine  in 
his  natur  \  But  if  his  imprudence  and  folly  brought 
him  into  shame  and  clouded  his  days  with  distressing 
darkness,  to  him  was  given  the  grace  to  support  his 
griefs  with  a  Christian  patience  and  sweet  resig- 
nation, to  which  we  can  find  few  parallels.  He 
had  a  divine  hopefulness  and  saw  at  once  the  good 
in  things  most  evil. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  invited,  in  the  days  when  he  was 
deemed  most  of  a  heretic,  to  preach  in  one  of  the 
leading  orthodox  Churches  of  Chicago.  Though 
the  second  half  of  his  sermon  was  supremely  beauti- 
ful, and  brought  tears  to  the  eyes  of  many,  as  he 
pictured  the  suffering  mother  bending  over  her  child 
as  an  illustration  of  divine  love,  the  first  part  of  the 
sermon  was  taken  up  with  a  severe  criticism  of  some 
articles  of  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith. 
The  pastor  and  many  members  of  the  Church 
thought  him  discourteous,  or,  at  least,  forgetful  of 
the  proprieties.  What  he  actually  said  was  far  from 
being  as  severe  and  critical  as  remarks  since  made  on 
the  same  theme  by  orthodox  divines  in  the  Pres- 
bytery of  New  York,  but  at  that  time  members  of 
the  Presbyterian  Communion  were  much  more  sen- 
sitive to  criticism  of  their  standards.  Mr.  George 
W.    Cable,    learning   what    Mr.    Beecher   had    done, 


460  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

expressed  the  opinion  that  there  was  nothing  dis- 
courteous in  Mr.  Beecher's  freeing  his  mind  as  he  did. 
Mr.  Beecher  afterwards  expressed  his  regret  at  the 
unpleasant  feeling  that  his  sermon  had  occasioned, 
although  he  himself  did  not  recall  any  severity,  or 
anything  that  need  be  objectionable.  It  was  always 
his  custom,  he  said,  to  speak  the  truth  as  he  believed 
it  and  as  it  appeared  to  him  at  the  time  of  his  speaking, 
no  matter  where  he  was.1 

Mr.  Beecher  had  not  the  practical  wisdom  and 
thoughtfulness  of  his  father,  Lyman  Beecher.  He 
was  not  an  ideal  man  any  more  than  Cromwell,  Luther 
or  the  Apostle  Paul.  We  think  of  him  not  as  a  statue, 
"  moulded  in  colossal  calm,"  but  as  a  cataract  thun- 
dering, grandiose,  sparkling  with  foam,  garlanded 
with  rainbows.  Grace,  experience,  and  sorrow  sub- 
dued and  mellowed,  as  well  as  enlarged,  his  vigorous 
vitality,  but  the  points  of  rugged  strength  in  him 
were  so  prominent,  that  the  moral  artist  would  hardly 
say  that  he  was  statuesque,  or,  if  so,  we  must  look  to 
the  Goth,  and  not  to  the  Greek,  for  our  patterns. 
We  define  some  men  by  what  they  lack.  We  say 
that  they  have  not  this  fault  or  that  peculiarity.  Not 
so  Mr.  Beecher.  He  might  have  said,  with  George 
Eliot's  Felix  Holt,  that  he  had  not  learned  to  measure 
himself  by  the  negations  in  him. 

At  Madison,  Indiana,  where  the  Rev.  Harvey  Cur- 
tis was  the  Presbyterian  pastor,  Mr.  Beecher  came  to 

assist  in  a  revival   and  was  entertained   by  Mrs. . 

After  the  evening  meetings,  Mr.  Beecher  used  to  tell 
funny  stories   about   the   inquiry-room  and  the  odd 


'From  N.  D.  Pratt's  "  Reminiscences." 


"this  was  a  man."  461 

people  he  met  there.  He  could  not  help  seeing  and 
reporting  these  things.  Of  course  he  kept  the  young 
people  in  a  roar  of  laughter,  but  the  incongruity  of 
his  remarks  had  an  unfortunate  effect  over  some  of 
them.  Occasionally  when  persons  with  whom  he  was 
very  familiar,  became  unendurably  long-winded,  he 
would  listen  to  their  tiresome  stories,  and  then  take  a 
little  candle,  which  he  always  carried  in  his  bag,  and 
stick  it  between  his  book  and  his  near-sighted  eyes, 
and  read.     He  was  often  the  guest  in  Chicago  of  Mrs. 

W ,  and  he  always  talked  about  the  odd  people  they 

had  known  in  Indiana.  Sometimes,  when  they  had 
not  met  for  months,  he  would  enter  the  hall  without 
saying  a  word,  would  put  his  umbrella  up  in  the  cor- 
ner in  the  funny  familiar  way  of  Mr.  B ,  and  they 

would  all  sit  down  convulsed  with  laughter.  When 
persons  called  whom  he  did  not  like  to  talk  with,  he 
would  be  very  polite  and  uncommunicative,  and  after 
they  had  gone  and  closed  the  door  he  would  lift  up 
the  doormat  and  shake  it  gently.  Rev.  Dr.  E.  F. 
Williams  was  talking  with  Mr.  Beecher  in  Plymouth 
Church  during  the  meetings  of  the  Council  in  1876. 
Mr.  Beecher  was  sitting  on  the  platform,  swinging  his 
feet,  and  said  in  that  deliberate  tone  in  which  pathos 
and  humor  mingled:  "  When  I  am  dead,  men  will  say, 
how  they  abused  him,  that  great  Mr.  Beecher,  how 
he  was  abused  !  " 

Curious  and  laughable  things  seemed  all  the  while 
happening  in  his  life,  and  some  of  them  had  to  do 
with  his  daily  mail.  All  sorts  of  requests  were  for- 
warded by  the  letter-writing  beggars.  "  One  young 
man  wanted  Mr.  Beecher  to  buy  him  a  horse  and  a 
hearse,  and  thus  enable  him  to  have  a  monopoly  of 


462  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

the  undertaking  business  in  his  native  town.  Another 
wanted  Mr.  Beecher  to  write  him  a  lecture,  which  he 
would  commit  to  memory,  and  then  go  out  and  aston- 
ish the  people  with  it.  One  woman  had  lost  two 
husbands,  and  had  not  the  means  to  put  up  a  grave- 
stone for  the  last.  She  begged  Mr.  Beecher  to  give 
her  the  money  for  one,  as  she  expected  to  marry  in  a 
few  weeks,  and  wanted  this  done  before  her  third 
marriage."  ' 

"  One  wanted  three  thousand  dollars  to  lift  the 
mortgage  from  his  farm.  A  clergyman,  in  distress, 
asked  for  a  thousand,  saying  the  Lord  would  re- 
pay it."a 

His  house  was  besieged  from  morning  until  night 
with  men,  women,  and  children,  singly  and  in  groups, 
with  requests  for  the  use  of  his  name  or*counsel,  for 
money,  for  help  in  finding  a  friend  lost  in  the  city,  for 
work,  for  attendance  at  a  funeral,  for  religious  con- 
versation, and  so  on,  month  after  month.  Dr.  E.  F. 
Williams  and  Dr.  Goodwin,  of  Chicago,  were  talking 
with  him  after  the  great  Chicago  fire,  and  speaking 
of  the  lack  of  economy  in  the  denominational  work 
among  the  Congregationalists.  The  union  of  some 
of  the  theological  seminaries  was  advocated.  One  of 
them  said:  "  There  is  Hartford  Seminary,  it  ought  to 
be  taken  to  San  Francisco."  "  Yes,"  said  Mr. 
Beecher,  quick  as  a  flash,  "  take  it  by  the  way  of  Cape 
Horn!" 

It  is  estimated  that  during  his  forty  years  in 
Brooklyn,  Mr.  Beecher  earned,  with  pen  and  voice, 
nearly  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars.     A  very  large 

1  Mrs.  Beecher,  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  May,  1892. 
'  "  Biography,"  p.  656. 


"this  was  a  man."  463 

portion  of  this  was  given  away.  Rev.  Dr.  Frank 
Russell  has  written:  "The  impression  is  prevalent 
that  Mr.  Beecher's  life  was  one  of  singular  charity 
and  generosity,  and  in  this  regard  he  was  probably 
susceptible  to  every  imposition.  I  have  seen  him 
hand  money  to  those  asking  for  alms,  or  calling  at 
his  door  with  pitiful  tales  of  distress,  in  amounts 
which  I  silently  thought  were  far  too  large  for  the 
occasion.  The  remark  was  common  among  those 
who  knew  of  the  circumstances,  when  his  apparently 
large  salary  was  the  theme  of  the  conversation,  that 
it  made  very  little  difference  how  much  Mr.  Beecher 
received,  for  he  would  give  it  all  away  but  his  living, 
and  his  family  had  to  watch  pretty  closely  to  get 
that.  "  ' 

"  He  supported  a  large  and  growing  family;  h« 
divided  generously  with  his  relatives  by  birth  and 
marriage;  he  gave  liberally  during  the  war;  he  made 
constant  contributions  to  deserving  societies  when 
collections  were  taken  up  in  his  church;  he  loaned 
money  as  cheerfully  as  he  gave  a  glass  of  water;  he 
bought  his  house  on  Columbia  Heights;  he  bought  a 
farm  in  Peekskill,  and  he  erected  and  paid  for  a  resi- 
dence on  that  farm  at  a  gross  cost  of  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  dollars."2 

Few  men  have  ever  lived  who  were  so  resolute  to 
return  good  for  evil  as  Mr.  Beecher.  He  was  always 
kind  to  the  newspaper  men,  from  whom  he  suffered  so 
much.  A  famous  college  president  having  published 
a  discourteous,  condemnatory  letter  about  Mr. 
Beecher,  one  of  Mr.  Beecher's  friends  replied  to  it  in 

1  Howard's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  503. 
9  Howard's  "  Life  of  Beecher." 


464  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

words  of  rebuke.     Afterwards  he  told  Mr.  Beecher  of 

this  event,  and  said:   "  I  hear  that  President is 

having  considerable  trouble  with  the  students  at  his 
college,  and  I  am  glad  of  it.  I  hope  he  will  have  so 
much  of  it  that  he  will  have  to  leave."  But  Mr. 
Beecher  answered:  "  Oh,  no;  you  should  feel  just  the 
opposite;  you  should  always  feel  sorry  for  any  one  in 
trouble.  I  know  President ,  and  know  the  diffi- 
culty he  is  in  just  now,  and  had  thought  of  writing 
him,  and  expressing  my  regret,  and  the  hope  that  it 
would  soon  be  over." 

Probably  no  man  of  our  generation  has  been  more 
disliked  and  criticised  by  ministers.  Mr.  Beecher 
well  knew  it.  As  a  result  he  stood  very  much  by  him- 
self. "  But  I  have  never  felt  any  bitterness  toward 
those  who  regarded  me  with  disfavor.  And  I  speak 
the  truth  when  I  declare  that  I  do  not  remember  of 
having,  toward  any  minister,  a  feeling  that  I  would 
have  been  afraid  to  have  God  review  on  the  Judg- 
ment Day." ' 

"During  the  great  trial  a  brother  clergyman 
brought  to  him  the  sympathies  of  many  friends  at 
the  West,  saying,  '  I  suppose  that  you  get  so  many 
of  these  expressions  that  they  begin  to  seem  of  little 
value.'  Mr.  Beecher  then,  with  an  evidently  un- 
shaken spirit,  replied,  '  When  they  come  I  receive 
them  gladly  and  gratefully;  when  they  do  not  come 
I  am  not  discouraged  or  depressed.  Tell  those 
Western  friends  that  I  stand  here  like  a  cedar  on 
Mount  Lebanon.'"3 

Mr.  Pratt,  in  his  "  Reminiscences,"  says:  "  On  the 

1  "  Men  of  Our    Times,"  p.  574. 

3  Letter  from  Mr.  C.  H.  A.  Bulklcy,  Washington,  D.  C. 


"this  was  a  man."  465 

Sabbath,  when  riding  with  Mr.  Beecher  to  Professor 
Swing's  church,  the  conversation  turned  upon  the 
great  trial  and  sorrow  of  his  life.  I  said  to  him  that 
it  seemed  to  me  as  if,  in  his  time,  the  right  and  truth 
weuld  appear,  and  that  my  wife,  with  a  woman's  in- 
tuition, had  said  to  me,  but  a  day  or  two  before,  that 
she  felt  quite  sure  he  would  live  to  see  that  time,  and 
had  also  expressed  the  opinion  that  there  must  be 
some  great  purpose  in  God's  dealing  thus  with  one  of 
His  servants;  but  he  said  he  did  not  hope  for  it,  nor 
expect  it;  that  he  expected  to  live  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life  under  a  cloud;  that  it  was  God's  will  concern- 
ing his  life,  and  he  was  resigned  to  it.  He  said  that 
some  great  purpose  there  must  be,  indeed,  in  permit- 
ting such  a  calamity  and  such  great  suffering.  He 
said  that  words  could  not  express,  and  no  one  could 
know,  the  bitterness  of  such  a  trial.  He  told  me  then 
that,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  trouble  until 
now,  he  had  never  renewed,  or  sought  to  renew,  an 
acquaintance  or  former  friendship.  In  all  cases  he 
had  waited  for  others  to  make  the  advances,  and  he 
spoke  of  the  inexpressible  trial  it  was  to  him,  whose 
friends  had  been  myriad,  to  take  such  a  position  as 
this,  bcause  of  the  calamity  that  had  befallen  him, — 
innocent — and  engaged  in  a  sincere  and  earnest  effort 
to  help  and  to  save  others.  His  words  and  his  man- 
ner were  such  that  they  impressed  me  wonderfully, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  endure  it.  I 
could  not  understand,  as  all  his  friends  could  not,  the 
mystery  of  God's  dealing  with  him." 

Frequent  reference  has  been  made  to  what  has  been 
called  the  "  morbid  streak  "  in  his  nature.     His  father 
had    lived    for  years    after  the  failure  of  his  mental 
30 


466  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

powers,  and  Mr.  Beecher,  although  not  usually 
given  to  borrowing  trouble,  feared  that  mental  failure 
might  come  to  him  at  last.  He  talked  a  good  deal 
about  sending  in  his  resignation  to  Plymouth  Church. 
On  one  occasion,  while  in  England,  in  1886,  his  wife 
asked  for  the  letter  of  resignation,  which  he  carried 
in  his  pocket,  and  requested  from  him  a  promise  that 
he  would  never  write  another  like  it.  He  gave  her 
the  letter  and  she  tore  it  in  pieces  and  tossed  it  into 
the  fire. 

He  was  happy  with  children  and  made  them  happy. 
He  used  mild  means  in  training  his  own  children. 
When  the  offenses,  however,  were  those  of  meanness, 
falsehood,  cruelty,  or  dishonesty,  he  could  punish  with 
great  earnestness  and  severity.  He  always  continued 
his  love  of  simple  pleasures,  the  sports  of  children, 
the  delight  of  exercise,  marbles,  swimming,  sliding  on 
the  ice-fields.  "  He  was  always  the  youngest  member 
of  his  family,  always  the  most  sympathetic  friend  of 
his  boys  and  his  daughter."  "In  April,  1883,"  says  Mr. 
Pratt  in  his  "  Reminiscences,"  "  I  arranged  an  enter- 
tainment at  my  house  for  my  children,  one  of  a  series, 
and  had  a  little  programme  printed.  One  of  these  I 
sent  to  Mr.  Beecher  not  expecting  to  hear  from  him. 
In  a  few  days  I  received  the  following: 

Brooklyn,  April  27,  1883. 

My  Dear  Mr.  Pratt — Instead  of  going  out  under  Pond's 
care  hereafter,  I  am  thinking  of  organizing  a  company  of  my 
own,  and  I  am  looking  out  for  material. 

I  notice  a  new  movement  in  Chicago  which  I  wish  you  would 
inquire  into  and  give  me  a  report.  It  seems  like  a  concert 
troupe,  headed  hy  Ned  and  Mamie  Pratt;  at  any  rate  they  are 
set  forth  as  managers.     I  would  like  you  to  find  out: 


"this  was  a  man.'  467 

I.  Is  this  a  moral  and  instructive  combination,  equal  on 
emergency,  to  Barnum's  in  educational  benefit? 

II.  At  what  price  could  I  engage  them  for  one  season? 

III.  "Would  the  expenses  on  the  road,  of  the  party,  be  large  ? 
Are  they  good  travelers,  easy  to  manage,  good  eaters,  and 
generally  respectable? 

As  this  will  be  my  first  season  out  as  an  Operatic  and  Gen- 
eral Manager,  it  is  important  that  I  make  no  mistake . 
Yours  sincerely, 

Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

In  1859  he  bought  a  farm  in  Peekskill  on  the  Hud- 
son. Here  he  built  a  model  country  home,  after 
making  careful  studies  for  several  years.  In  the 
building  of  this  home,  which  he  called  "  Boscobel," 
he  found  great  relief  for  his  much-worried  mind. 
The  Peekskill  Farm  is  the  scene  of  much  of  his  best 
life.  "  God  alone  knows  the  prayers,  the  thanks- 
givings in  untroubled  days,  or  self-consecration  and 
submission  to  his  Father's  will  in  days  of  trial,  which 
found  their  way  up  to  his  Saviour  from  the  innumer- 
able secluded  spots  which  he  found  on  that  dear  old 
Hillside  Rest.'" 

Few  men  were  fitted  to  enjoy  country  life  like 
Mr.  Beecher.  "  Boscobel,"  his  new  house  at  Peeks- 
kill,  was  entered  in  1878,  and  became  ultimately  his 
permanent  residence.  "  None  outside  of  the  family 
will  ever  know  to  how  many  '  Boscobel '  was  a  veri- 
table tower  of  refuge  in  dark  days  and  troubled 
times  ;  how  many  found  inspiration  there  for  greater 
work  and  increased  courage  for  burden-bearing."2 


1  Mrs.  Beerher,  in  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  1892. 
s"  Biography,"  p.  632. 


468  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

His  thirty-six  acres  were  laid  out  with  great  care 
and  planted  with  over  sixteen  hundred  varieties  of 
trees  and  shrubs.  He  raised  Ayrshire  and,  later, 
Jersey,  cows.  The  farm  was  well  stocked  with  flowers 
and  bees  and  dogs. 

He  was  an  expert  and  enthusiastic  player  of  the 
game  of  croquet.  His  fondness  for  horses,  and  for 
fast  horses,  is  well-known.  He  drove  them  fearlessly 
and  with  great  skill.  He  was  a  great  lover  of  books 
and  the  desire  to  buy  them,  as  with  many  other 
bibliomaniacs,  was  a  serious  source  of  temptation  and 
the  cause  of  good-natured  domestic  trouble.  "  When 
is  human  nature  so  weak  and  helpless  as  in  a  book- 
store ?  The  appetite  for  drink  cannot  be  half  so 
great  as  the  temptations  which  beset  a  book-lover  in 
a  large  and  richly  furnished  bookstore."  ' 

He  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  Old  Corner  Book- 
store in  Boston.  One  day  he  was  looking  over  a 
pile  of  twenty  or  thirty  volumes,  all  of  them  Lives 
of  Christ,  including  Strauss's,  Renan's,  Beecher's, 
and  others,  when  Mr.  Beecher  spoke  of  his  own  as 
"the  poorest  in  the  whole  collection."  " '  Farrar's 
Life,'  "  he  said,  "  is  worth  more  than  all  the  rest  put 
together." 

His  house  was  filled  with  engravings,  and  he  made 
it  an  art  gallery  for  his  own  cultivation  and  that  of 
his  children  and  friends.  "  It  was  a  rare  day  at 
Dresden  when  we  were  shut  up  all  day  alone  in  the 
Hall  of  Engravings,  and  had  a  taste  of  the  rarest  and 
choicest  bits  of  every  school  and  period."  The 
names  of  scores  of  the  more  important  works  in  his 


1  Mrs.  Beecher,  in  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  May,  1892. 


"this  was  a  man."  469 

library,  including  Boydell's  "  Plates  to  Shakespeare," 
Baillie's  "  Engravings  After  the  Old  Masters,"  an 
imperial  folio  containing  impressions  of  "  Hogarth's 
Works,"  Holbein's  "  Court  of  Henry  VIII.,"  Jerdan's 
"  National  Portrait  Gallery,"  Spence's  "  Polymetis," 
with  plates  by  Bortard  and  others,  have  been  pub- 
lished. 

He  is  said  to  have  been  a  good  judge  of  the  com- 
parative merits  of  impressions,  and  among  the  origi- 
nal engravings  and  etchings  which  he  possessed  there 
were  Rembrandts,  Diirers,  Van  Dycks,  Lucas  von 
Leydens,  and  Van  Ostades.  He  was  also  the  owner 
of  paintings  by  Diaz,  Inness,  De  Haas,  J.  L.  Brown, 
W.  Hamilton  Gibson  and  others.  It  was  the  opin- 
ion of  De  Haas  that  Mr.  Beecher's  services  to  the 
cultivation  of  the  beautiful  were  such  as  to  entitle 
him  "  to  be  ranked  high  in  the  brotherhood  of  those 
who  see  things  invisible  to  the  uncultured  eye. 
Having  the  ear  of  the  common  people  as  no  other  of 
his  generation  has  had,  he  brought  his  love  of  those 
things  as  an  offering  to  God,  and  Art  in  his  teaching 
became  the  handmaiden  of  religion."  1 

His  fondness  for  jewels  is  well  known.  He  was  a 
great  student  of  gems,  and  used  to  linger  over  them, 
refreshing  his  mind  by  feasting  his  eyes  on  their 
brilliant  and  varied  colors.  Jewelers  entrusted  him 
with  valuable  gems.  The  opal  was  his  chief  favorite. 
"  Rubies,  amethysts,  topazes — all  were  loved  as 
friends,  not  because  of  his  love  for  their  color,  but 
because  he  seemed  to  read  in  them  a  page  of  the 
book    of   nature."     His  susceptibility  to    music,   his 


"  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  90. 


47°  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

delight  in  melody,  are  well  known.  Dr.  William 
A.  Hammond,  of  New  York,  writes:  "Some  songs, 
especially  when  sung  by  women  with  rich  sym- 
pathetic voices,  and  with  the  feeling  that  the  sub- 
ject and  the  music  required,  never  failed  to  move 
him,  and  not  infrequently  to  bring  tears.  I  remember 
how  upon  one  occasion  he  told  me,  as  the  piece  was 
being  played  by  Thomas's  orchestra,  that  Gounod's 
'  Funeral  March  of  a  Marionette  '  caused  in  him  such 
a  mixture  of  emotions  that  he  did  not  know  whether 
to  laugh  or  to  cry."  ' 

He  did  not  agree  with  the  immortal  Baillie  Nicol 
Jarvie  who  assured  Rob  Roy  that  "  the  multiplication 
table  is  the  root  of  all  useful  knowledge."  Mathe- 
matics was  not  one  of  his  strong  points.  He  could 
not  be  trusted  with  figures,  unless  they  were  written 
out.  Lawyer  Shearman  relates  an  amusing  incident 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  helplessness  when  trying  to  give 
the  exact  weight  of  "  Great  Tom,"  the  Oxford  bell. 
Dr.  Talmage  discovered  that  Mr.  Beecher  was  not 
sure  of  the  multiplication  table! 

He  was  a  student,  eager,  delighted,  enthusiastic,  of 
all  the  changing  moods  of  the  seasons.  He  was  a 
lover  of  farm-life  and  found  in  it  his  most  profitable 
rest.  He  knew  all  the  birds,  and  flowers  had  a  won- 
derfully soothing  effect  on  his  nerves.  Sky-gazing 
quieted  his  soul.  His  love  of  flowers,  fruits,  and 
farming  continued  through  life.  He  published  many 
essays  on  these  things,  and  the  horticultural  allusions 
and  figures  which  might  be  gathered  from  his  more 
than   thirty  volumes  would   fill    hundreds  of  pages. 


"  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  85. 


"this  was  a  man."  4)1 

Me  was  fond  of  horses,  cows,  dogs,  and  hens,  and  an 
essay  on  "Cackling"  is  said  to  have  been  the  last 
article  he  ever  published.  Speaking  of  dogs  he  once 
said:  "If  the  dog  isn't  good  for  anything  else,  it  is 
good  for  you  to  love,  and  that  is  a  good  deal.  I  have 
two  miserable  scraggy  dogs  up  at  my  Peekskill  farm. 
They  are  practically  good  for  nothing,  but  I  some- 
times think  that  they  are  worth  more  to  me  than  the 
whole  place."  ' 

What  he  saw  and  said  about  nature  was  a  revela- 
tion to  common  minds  and  also  a  help  to  special 
students,  like  John  Burroughs. 

No  one  understands  Mr.  Beecher's  soul  who  has 
not  read  the  "  Star  Papers,"  written  from  Lenox, 
Mass.,  in  1854.  The  heart  of  Berkshire  was  never 
more  beautifully  disclosed.  These  letters  are  among 
the  classics  in  the  literature  of  nature.  His  "  Dream 
Culture,"  "  Gone  to  the  Country,"  "  A  Walk  Among 
Trees  "  reveal  to  us  a  man  whom  Wordsworth  and 
Ruskin  would  have  hailed  as  a  brother. 

A  book  might  be  filled  with  instances  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  wit  and  humor.  He  once  described  an  old- 
fashioned  sewing-circle:  "You  know,"  he  said,  "that 
a  company  of  ladies  get  together,  and  they  sew  up 
their  collars  and  they  sew  up  their  neighbors  (accom- 
panying the  words  by  illustrating  with  his  hand  as 
if  sewing) ;  in  fact,  it  is  a  sort  of  sew-c'\a\  cannibalism."  2 

At  the  close  of  the  pew-renting  in  Plymouth 
Church,  a  friend  said  to  him,  "  Mr.  Beecher,  I  have 
been  trying  all  the  evening  to  get  a  seat  and  have  not 


1  Knox's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  p.  499. 

2  •'  Life,"  pp.  I93-I94- 


472  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

succeeded."  To  which  Mr.  Beecher  replied,  "  Well, 
then,  you  must  fulfill  the  apostolic  injunction,  and 
having  done  all  to  stand."  ' 

At  the  close  of  Mr.  Beecher's  sermon  in  1882,  in  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church,  Chicago,  a  member  of  the 
congregation,  a  gentleman  of  great  wealth,  an  intense 
admirer  of  Mr.  Beecher,  came  up  to  him  and  said: 
"  Fifteen  years  ago  I  loaned  you  a  dime  for  fare  on 
the  ferry,"  and  to  this  Mr.  Beecher  replied:  "  I  hope 
you  have  not  come  to  dun  me  for  it  now!  " 

No  man  relished  a  good  social  time  with  his  friends 
more  than  Mr.  Beecher.  "  In  1883,"  says  Mr.  Pratt,  in 
his  "  Reminiscences,"  "  when  on  a  visit  to  New  York, 
I  enjoyed  the  last  opportunity  I  ever  had  to  hear  Mr. 
Beecher  preach  in  his  own  pulpit.  I  went  to  Ply- 
mouth Church  in  the  morning,  and  at  the  close  of 
the  service  stood  not  far  from  the  pulpit,  waiting  for 
the  people  to  withdraw,  so  I  could  speak  to  Mr. 
Beecher.  Seeing  me,  he  beckoned  to  me,  and  said: 
'  Pratt,  I  am  glad  to  see  you;  you  must  go  home  to 
dinner  with  me  to-day,  or  there  will  be  a  funeral  in 
your  father's  family,'  and  I  was  glad  to  accept  the 
invitation.  Before  leaving,  Mr.  Beecher  showed  me 
the  various  telephones  that  were  attached  to  the 
pulpit  desk,  one  reaching  to  Newark,  one  to  Elizabeth, 
one  to  Orange,  and,  I  believe,  one  or  two  into  Brook- 
lyn houses,  and  one  or  two  into  New  York,  so  that 
his  sermon  was  heard  by  persons  at  these  various 
points  every  Sunday.  As  we  stood  at  the  church 
door  for  a  moment,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Beecher,  Moses 
Beach   and   his  wife,  and   myself,  conversing,  a   very 

'"Life,"  p.  193. 


"this  was  a  man."  473 

plain  and  plainly-dressed  young  man  came  up,  and, 
without  speaking,  handed  Mr.  Beecher  a  small  pack- 
age and  walked  away.  Mr.  Beecher  looked  at  it 
curiously,  and  remarked  that,  perhaps,  it  contained 
dynamite,  and  would  blow  us  all  up;  however,  he  said 
we  would  all  go  together  if  it  was,  and  he  opened 
the  package.  It  contained,  in  a  small  piece  of  paper, 
a  nickel,  and  on  the  scrap  of  paper  was  written:  '  Mr. 
Beecher,  I  heard  your  sermon  this  morning,  and  I 
want  to  be  that  kind  of  a  Christian.'  Mr.  Beecher 
remarked  that  it  was  a  humble  and  pleasant  tribute." 

"  At  dinner  he  was  very  jovial  and  entertaining. 
Though  it  was  Sunday,  he  and  I  fell  to  telling  stories, 
and  after  a  little  while  Mr.  Beecher  looked  up  and 
said:  '  Eunice,  what  makes  you  keep  punching  me  so 
for?  Pratt  and  I  want  to  have  a  good  time.'  '  Well,' 
she  said,  '  I  want  you  to  behave  yourselves;  it  is  Sun- 
day.' '  My  dear,'  he  answered,  '  I  wish  you  would  let 
me  alone.'  I  recall  that  Sunday  visit  with  Mr. 
Beecher  with  the  greatest  pleasure  always.  Before  I 
left  he  took  me  to  his  various  studies,  and  showed  me 
his  libraries,  the  desk  where  he  wrote  his  sermons, 
various  pictures  of  himself,"  etc. 

Mr.  Pratt  has  some  amusing  reminiscences  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  meeting  with  common  people.  ''That  night 
we  remained  at  Racine,  and  the  next  morning  were 
detained  for  an  hour  or  two,  waiting  about  the  hotel 
office.  There  were  a  number  of  countrymen  loung- 
ing about  the  office,  and  one  of  them  came  up  to  me 
and  said,  '  Is  that  Mr.  Beecher?'  I  told  him  it  was. 
'Is  it  Henry  Ward  Beecher?'  'It  is.'  'Can  I 
speak  to  him?'  I  said, 'You  can,  no  doubt.'  'Well, 
how  shall  I  do  it  ? '     I   replied,    '  Why  go  right  up 


474  HENRY   WARD    BEBCHER, 

and  speak  to  him,  as  you  would  to  any  one  else.' 
'What  will  he  do?'  he  asked.  I  told  him  that  he 
would  do  what  any  one  else  would,  and  would  answer 
him  pleasantly.  So  he  went  up  timidly  and  spoke  to 
Mr.  Beecher,  and  very  soon  they  were  engaged  in 
earnest  conversation,  Mr.  Beecher  finding  that  this 
man  was  the  son  of  one  of  his  old  parishioners  at 
Indianapolis.  I  told  Mr.  Beecher  of  the  man's  ques- 
tions and  he  remarked:  '  I  suppose  he  thought  that 
if  he  spoke  to  me  I  would  explode.' 

"  A  man  approached  Mr.  Beecher  on  the  train 
and  in  a  very  pompous  manner  reached  out  his 
hand  and  said:  'This  is  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  I 
believe?'  Mr.  Beecher  replied  in  the  affirmative, 
and  the  man  said,  '  Well,  Mr.  Beecher,  fifteen  years 
ago  I  shook  hands  with  you  in  Michigan.'  'Well,' 
said  Mr.  Beecher,  '  did  it  hurt  you  any  ?'  " 

Mr.  Beecher  wrote  his  own  letters,  though  the  bus- 
iness correspondence  was  turned  over  to  his  wife.  He 
was  punctilious  in  answering  letters,  sometimes  giv- 
ing a  whole  morning  to  the  correspondence  which  had 
accumulated,  but,  unfortunately  for  him,,  he  did  not 
learn  to  use  any  of  the  modern  devices  for  lessening 
the  toil  of  the  letter-writer.  As  an  illustration  of  his 
care  in  answering  inquiries  from  strangers,  the  follow- 
ing reply  to  questions  about  the  duty  of  personal 
conversation  with  the  unconverted  will  be  of  interest: 

Peekskill,  N.  Y.,      ) 
July   17,  1884.  i 

DEAR  Sir — This  is  vacation,  and  I  am  trying  to  answer  some 
of  the  letters  which  have  accumulated  on  my  hands. 

There  are  some  who  have  the  gift  of  easy  approach  and  con- 
versation with  men  respecting  their  religious  experience  and 


"this  was  a  man.  475 

condition.  They  can  do  it  easily,  spontaneously,  effectively. 
Others  are  not  so  skillful,  and  do  more  harm  than  good.  In  the 
Apostles'  day  there  were  gifts  (see  I.  Cor.  12),  and  one  did  not 
attempt  to  exercise  the  other's  gifts.  In  some  way  a  Christian 
man  should  let  it  be  known  (rather  by  his  conduct  than  by  his 
speech)  that  he  is  a  follower  of  Christ. 

As  a  teacher,  one  may  have  opportunity  to  give  his  class 
together  a  word  of  exhortation.  Again,  there  come  times 
when  a  single  sentence  may  be  dropped,  or  one  may  be  so  full 
of  some  experience  that  a  friend  might  obviously  wish  a  con- 
versation. The  whole  thing  may  be  left  to  one's  common  sense, 
provided  his  heart  is  filled  with  love  and  his  whole  life  pene- 
trated with  a  sense  of  Eternal  truth.  But  an  empty  heart  is 
not  improved  by  chattering  lips. 

Do  not  intrude  on  men  in  a  professional  spirit,  because  it  is 
the  cant  of  the  times.  A  doctor  should  not  be  inquisitive  of 
every  man's  health  whom  he  meets,  and  yet  should  be  ready  at 
all  times  to  aid  the  sick,  and  so  of  lawyers,  and  so  of  ministers. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  soul  is  of  more  importance  than  the 
body,  and  that  it  is  in  peril  every  hour.  Even  so,  experience 
shows  that  an  intrusive  conversation  is  not  the  best  way  of  in- 
fluencing it.  One  should  be  himself  filled  with  the  Spirit  before 
he  seeks  to  inspire.  A  routine  Christian,  talking  to  every  one, 
because  he  thinks  it  to  be  his  duty,  is  little  better  than  a  pair  of 
bellows,  puffing  in  winter  in  hopes  of  bringing  on  spring. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

To  Charles  Beecher  Holdrege,  President  of  the  Illinois 
State  Christian  Endeavor  Society. 

He  was  at  heart  a  Puritan,  a  true  lineal  descendant 
of  that  "  earnest-eyed  race,  stiff  from  long  wrestling 
with  the  Lord  in  prayer,  who  had  taught  Satan  to 
dread  the  new  Puritan  hug."  But  as  a  loyal  Puritan 
he  set  his  face  toward  the  future.  He  followed  the 
spirit  which  led  him  across  many  a  stormy  sea, 
into   new  lands,  into  new  continents  of  truth.     And 


476  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

though  he  could  preach  righteousness  like  a  prophet 
of  old  Jerusalem,  he  became  more  and  more  imbued 
with  the  sunshine  of  the  Gospel.  Many  of  his  best 
friends  felt  that  toward  the  last  his  great  heart 
preached  the  love  of  God  too  continuously,  and  that 
his  charity  overpassed  the  bounds  of  truth.  He  cer- 
tainly became  something  less  of  a  Puritan  in  his  ideas 
of  popular  amusements.  In  his  later  years  he  modi- 
fied his  attitude  toward  the  theater,  and  became 
acquainted  in  a  most  friendly  way  with  some  of  the 
greater  actors. 

Has  any  other  man  touched  our  National  life  at  so 
many  points?  President  Cleveland  has  written  of 
him:  "  An  honorable  pride  in  American  citizenship, 
guided  by  the  teachings  of  religion,  he  believed  to  be 
a  sure  guaranty  of  a  splendid  National  destiny.  I 
never  met  Mr.  Beecher  without  gaining  something 
from  his  broad  views  and  wide  reflections."  ' 

"  Like  Lincoln,  he  stood  on  many  occasions  for  in- 
carnate common  sense.  "  a 

But  although  he  touched  the  common  life,  and 
the  higher  life,  of  the  Nation  at  every  point  of  the 
horizon,  no  one  can  read  the  story  of  his  career 
without  feeling  that  his  truest  life  was  hid  with 
Christ  in  God.  A  trusted  friend  has  written  of  him; 
"  He  always  felt,  and  sometimes  expressed,  a  deep 
sense  of  loneliness  in  his  highest  nature."3 

But  in  that  loneliness  he  knew  Divine  companion- 
ship, and  with  the  help  of  his  redeeming  God,  he  was 


1  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  27. 

*  George  W.  Childs,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  38. 

'Thomas  G.  Shearman,  "  Memorial  Service,"  p.  23. 


"this  was  a  man.  477 

able  to  battle  for  truth  and  righteousness  to  the  very- 
end,  leaving  a  name  that  shall  inspire  the  generous 
youth  of  coming  generations.  What  Eliza  Reimarus 
wrote,  as  at  the  grave  of  the  noblest  of  German  au- 
thors, may  well  be  repeated  by  those  who  shall  stand 
above  the  sod  in  Greenwood  which  covers  what  was 
mortal  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher: 

"  I  am  the  truth!     And  here  is  Lessing's  grave 
As  suns  go  down,  so  sank  he  to  his  rest, 
In  fullest  splendor,  and  lights  other  worlds. 
Yet  as  the  sun,  in  his  eternal  course, 
The  seed-corn  opens,  which  with  thousand  fruits, 
Its  blessings  scatters  to  infinitude, 
So  he,  too,  in  my  realm.     And  till  this  realm 
In  God's  wide  universe  shall  be  but  one, 
I  watch  here  by  his  urn,  and  gather  in 
The  oaths  of  those  who  him  their  brother  called, 
And  know  that  myriads  on  myriads 
Are  scattered  now  in  every  land 
To  arm  themselves  against  you  and  your  power. 
Yet  ye,  who  mourn  around  your  Lessing's  dust, 
If  all  your  tears  are  not  to  be  grimaces, 
Then  swear  in  earnest,  on  his  ashes,  swear 
For  truth  and  manhood's  sacred  right,  like  him, 
In  spite  of  Prejudice,  and  Prince,  and  Priest, 
With  dauntless  heroism  still  to  fight, 
Till  God  shall  call  you  to  the  realm  of  truth." 


CHAPTER  XLVL 


THE    ELOQUENT    ORATOR. 


There  is  no  doubt  that  the  oratorical  achievements 
of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  are  among  the  most  splendid 
in  the  history  of  the  century.  His  oratorical  genius 
was  shown  in  the  pulpit,  on  the  platform,  before 
popular  assemblies  stirred  with  political  excitement, 
in  the  presence  of  mobs,  in  the  hall  of  debate,  and  in 
familiar  conversation.  He  was  very  unequal,  and  men 
might  hear  him  in  one  of  his  quiet  lectures,  when  he 
scarcely  lifted  his  voice  above  a  conversational  tone, 
and  get  but  the  faintest  conception  of  the  slumbering 
powers,  which,  when  evoked  by  some  great  theme  or 
some  great  occasion  that  stirred  his  emotions,  electri- 
fied and  overawed  his  astonished  listeners.  Referring 
to  his  oratory,  Dr.  Cuyler  finely  says:  "  Of  his  mar- 
velous charms  of  eloquence,  I  need  no  more  write 
than  of  the  grandeur  of  Handel's  oratorios.  It  was 
something  to  dream  about.  His  voice  was  as  sweet  as 
a  lute  and  as  loud  as  a  trumpet.  In  its  tenderest 
pathos,  that  witching  voice  touched  the  fount  of 
tears.  When  he  rose  into  impassioned  sublimity, 
'they  that  heard  him  said  that  it  thundered.'"  ' 

When    touched    by  the  heroic,  or  roused  to    sym- 


1  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  42. 


THE  ELOQUENT  ORATOR.  479 

pathy  for  the  suffering,  Mr.  Beecher's  eloquence 
poured  forth  in  a  fiery  tide.  After  going  through  the 
Soldiers'  Home  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  and  speaking  kind 
words  to  the  sick  veterans,  he  addressed  these  wards 
of  the  Republic  "  with  an  eloquence,"  writes  Gen. 
Horatio  C.  King,  "  which  I  have  never  seen  equaled. 
They  were  held  spellbound,  and  before  he  closed 
there  was  not  a  dry  eye  in  that  assembly  of  at  least  a 
thousand  men,  varying  in  age  from  forty  to  sixty 
years.  .  .  .  And  when  he  attempted  to  pass 
through  the  crowd,  they  rushed  to  him  to  grasp  his 
hand  and  poured  forth  their  thanks  until  Mr.  Beecher, 
himself  almost  overcome  with  emotion,  was  compelled 
to  break  away."  ' 

An  old  minister,  who  for  many  years  had  lived  in  a 
Western  town,  has  said:  "The  great  sensation  of  the 
season  to  the  rustics  who  go  not  out  much  into  the 
great  world  has  been  the  advent  of  Mr.  Beecher  and 
the  pleasure  of  hearing  him  speak.  We  have  seen  the 
lion  and  heard  him  roar,  and  at  times  he  would  roar 
you  as  '  gently  as  a  sucking  dove,'  but  would  soon  as- 
sert his  lionhood  by  coming  out  with  his  tremendous 
basso-profundo.  His  lecture  was  a  splendid  sermon, 
much  of  it  occupied  with  splendid  interpretations  of 
the  Scripture  and  some  of  it  with  '  that  elder  Scripture 
writ  by  God's  own  hand,'  in  the  constitution  of  man. 
He  is  not  an  imposing  presence.  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  the  Little  Corporal  about  him,  especially  in 
his  power  to  wield  men.  But  I  feel  glad  and  grateful 
for  the  privilege  of  hearing  him,  and  think  all  who 
have   listened    to   him    must  have  marked  that  sure 


1  Knox's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  pp.  344-345. 


480  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

characteristic  of  genius  that  it  prompts  them  to 
higher  achievements  in  whatever  may  be  their  line  of 
work." 

Mr.  Beecher  should  be  studied  as  a  great  master  of 
oratorical  style.  He  got  his  English  from  the  very 
best  sources.  He  never  affected  the  colorless  sim- 
plicity, the  simple  clearness,  which  has  no  beauty  in 
it,  practiced  and  applauded  by  some  of  the  writers  and 
conversational  speakers  of  our  time.  He  could  be  as 
conversational  as  Phillips,  and  surely  no  style  is  less 
artificial  than  his,  but  his  words  were  the  expression 
of  his  own  abounding  mental  and  moral  life.  He 
could  be  simple  with  the  simplest,  and  ornate  and 
imaginative  with  the  great  masters  of  English,  like 
Milton  and  Burke. 

His  vocabulary  is  remarkably  rich,  and  though  he 
was  a  preacher  for  the  common  people,  we  find  him 
employing  at  times  quite  a  number  of  unusual,  tech- 
nical, or  obsolescent  words,  such  as  "  impudicity," 
"  cacophonous,"  "  incontradictible,"  "  unsworded," 
"  rugosities,"  "  sinuosities,"  "  vespertilian,"  "  fuligi- 
nous," "basilar,"  "  dismayful,"  "disbranched,"  etc. 
Mr.  Beecher  wrote  English,  purest  English,  and  very 
rarely  do  we  find  him  using  any  Latin  or  French 
expression.  It  is  almost  startling  to  stumble  across 
anything  in  him  so  simple  as  "  arriere  pensee."  This 
is  not  quite  like  Mr.  Lowell's  "  Mississippi  boatman 
quoting  Tennyson,"  although  it  gives  the  reader  a 
queer  and  humorous  shock. 

"  Mr.  Beecher,"  said  his  admiring  friend,  Dr. 
Parker,  "had  a  supreme  gift  of  language  as  was 
betokened  by  his  planet-like  eyes,  eyes  as  full  as 
Shakespeare's,  as  radiant  as  Gladstone's,  as  expressive 


THE  ELOQUENT  ORATOR.  481 

as  Garrick's.  In  the  use  of  words  he  was  a  necro- 
mancer." ' 

He  poured  forth,  in  the  height  of  his  emotion,  his 
rushing  sentences  with  such  velocity  at  times  that, 
not  infrequently,  he  was  as  careless  of  grammatical 
propriety  and  construction  as  was  the  Apostle  Paul 
in  the  glow  and  impetuosity  of  his  epistles. 

His  popular  lectures  were  on  such  themes  as  "  The 
Ministry  of  the  Beautiful,"  "  The  Uses  of  Wealth," 
"Amusements,"  "The  Reign  of  the  Common  Peo- 
ple," "  Conscience,"  "  Evolution  not  Revolution," 
"  The  Burdens  of  Society,"  "  A  Journey  Across  the 
Continent,"  "  Character."  Among  his  more  note- 
worthy addresses  in  later  life  were  those  given  at  the 
Parnell  Reception  Meeting,  the  Centennial  Address 
at  Peekskill,  the  Address  before  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac in  1878,  at  the  Channing  Memorial  Service  in 
1880,  at  the  Garfield  Ratification  Meeting  in  1880, 
and  the  Eulogy  on  General  Grant  delivered  in  Tre- 
mont  Temple,  Boston.  One  of  his  best  addresses 
was  that  on  "  Preaching  "  which  he  delivered  before 
the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  New  York  in  1873.  "  He 
spoke,"  said  Dr.  Schaff,  "  like  a  king  from  his  throne," 
and  it  was  on  occasions  like  this,  when  the  creative 
powers  of  his  mind  were  at  work  in  all  their  miracu- 
lous quickness  and  force  that  Mr.  Beecher  showed 
what  was  in  him. 

In  immediate  impressiveness  he  has  been  equaled 
by  no  American  of  this  century.  The  charm  of  Phil- 
lips's oratory  will  dwell  longer  in  the  delighted  mem- 
ories of  the  scholarly  and  refined.    Phillips's  presence 


1 "  Eulogy,"  p.  16. 
3i 


482  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

had  more  classic  dignity,  and  he  captured  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  hero-worshiper  more  completely.  But, 
standing  on  the  soil  of  common  manhood,  sharing 
more  fully  the  general  thought  and  life  of  the  people, 
Mr.  Beecher,  with  his  far  greater  physical  earnestness 
and  emotional  intensity,  easily  stirred  a  great  audi- 
ence more  profoundly  even  than  Wendell  Phillips. 
With  his  hearty  good  nature  and  overflowing  humor, 
he  was  able  to  say  his  severest  things  without  giving 
deep  offense.  "  Men  will  let  you  abuse  them,"  he 
said,  "if  you  will  only  make  them  laugh."  ' 

Although,  perhaps,  not  the  greatest,  he  was  yet  the 
most  successful  of  American  lecturers,  addressing 
larger  audiences  with  greater  pecuniary  rewards 
than  any  other  speaker.  His  editorial  writing  at  its 
best  had  the  same  qualities  with  his  most  fiery  public 
addresses.  Mr.  Beecher  is  justly  deemed  one  of  the 
two  or  three  greatest  editors  that  America  has  ever 
produced.  He  carried  into  his  editorial  work  the 
rush  and  inspirational  power  which  gave  such  vigor 
to  his  best  oratory.  He  was  not  an  editor  who  at- 
tended to  the  details  of  journalism,  but  he  wrote  with 
fury,  at  the  last  moment,  what  was  uppermost  in  his 
mind,  and  his  leaders  in  The  Independent,  it  has  truly 
been  said,  have  never  had  their  equal  in  kindling 
force  in  American  journalism.  The  Christian  Union, 
under  his  touch,  sprang  up  into  an  unparalleled 
growth,  reaching  in  a  short  time  a  circulation  of  more 
than  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand.  Lyman  Ab- 
bott, one  of  the  best  known  religious  journalists  in 
America,  has  said:  "  His  editorial  influence  will  never 


1  "  Eyes  and  Ears,"  p.  59. 


THE  ELOQUENT  ORATOR.  483 

cease  to  be  felt  in  the  larger  charity,  the  broader  views 
of  life,  and  the  greater  independence  of  thought  which 
he,  as  much  perhaps  as  any  living  man,  has  helped  to 
impart  to  American  journalism."  1 

On  his  lecture  tours  he  was  in  charge  of  his  agent 
and  he  had  no  cares  on  his  mind.  "  But  for  such 
faithful  supervision,  Mr.  Beecher  could  not  have 
accomplished  half  what  he  did  in  that  line.  From  the 
hour  that  he  left  for  a  lecturing  trip  until  his  return, 
he  was  as  free  from  thought  or  anxiety  about  his 
work  as  a  child."2 

Innumerable  stories  have  been  told  of  his  power  of 
quick  reply.  At  the  farewell  banquet  given  to  Herbert 
Spencer  on  the  9th  of  November,  1882,  Mr.  Beecher 
was  urged  to  do  something  to  wake  up  the  distin- 
guished company,  who  had  been  rendered  somnolent 
by  rather  heavy  speeches.  "Mr.  Beecher  did  wake 
them  up  effectually  by  a  magnificent  speech,  which 
roused  the  utmost  enthusiasm.  Dr.  Hammond,  the 
well-known  Surgeon-General  of  the  Army  during  the 
war,  strode  up  to  him,  and  in  a  voice  which  resounded 
through  the  hall,  said:  'Mr.  Beecher.  you  are  the 
greatest  man  in  America,  sir.'  Mr.  Beecher  instantly 
replied,  with  a  reproachful  air:  '  Dr.  Hammond,  you 
forget  yourself.'  " 3 

Charles  Dudley  Warner,  having  heard  one  of  the 
Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,  and  listened  to  his  replies 
to  the  pointed  inquiries  of  the  students,  thought  that 
Mr.  Beecher's  mental  alertness  and  unexpectedness, 


1  "  Life,"  pp.  132-133. 

5  Mrs.  Beecher,  Ladies'  Home  journal,  June,  1892. 

'  "  Memorial  Service,"  p.  32. 


484  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

his  quick-flashing  wit,  and  his  subtle  humor,  furnished 
a  display  of  intellectual  brilliancy  hardly  to  be 
matched.' 

At  the  close  of  his  first  Yale  Lecture  he  was  asked 
if  he  would  not  preach  a  fair  proportion  of  educating 
sermons,  and  he  instantly  replied:  "Men  in  the  or- 
dinary stage  are  like  robins'  eggs  in  the  nest;  you 
cannot  feed  them.  Let  the  robins  sit  on  them  a  little 
while  and  by  and  by  there  will  be  nothing  but  four 
mouths,  and  as  fast  as  you  put  in  worms  they  will 
gulp  them.  To  educate  man  in  the  cold  and  natural 
state  is  just  like  feeding  eggs.  Warm  them  and  give 
them  life,  and  they  will  eat." 

He  was  lecturing  on  "  Communism  "  in  the  old 
Wigwam  in  Chicago,  before  an  audience  of  ten 
thousand  people.  Everybody  was  subdued;  the 
audience  was  breathless  with  interest.  "  He  was  tell- 
ing the  story  of  the  rise  of  the  power  of  the  people. 
Presently  he  ended  a  ringing  period  with  these  words, 
pronounced  in  a  voice  so  deep  and  fervid  and  full  of 
conviction  that  they  seemed  to  have  been  uttered 
then  for  the  first  time,  '  The  voice  of  the  people  is  the 
voice  of  God.'  "  But  into  the  silence  which  followed 
this  utterance  came  the  voice  of  a  half-drunken  man 
in  the  gallery:  "  The  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice 
of  a  fool."  Would  Mr.  Beecher  be  equal  to  such  an 
interruption  which  made  the  sympathetic  crowd 
shiver  ?  He  certainly  was,  for,  looking  toward  the  gal- 
lery from  whence  the  voice  came,  he  replied  with  simple 
dignity:  "I  said  the  voice  of  the  people,  not  the 
voice  of  one  man."     The  response  from  the  audience 


1  "  Beecher  Memorial."  pp.  74-75. 


THE  ELOQUENT  ORATOR.  485 

was  a  sigh  of  happy  relief  rather  than  an  explosion  of 
laughter;  but  there  was  so  much  electric  sympathy 
throughout  the  Wigwam  that  an  outburst  was  wait- 
ing only  for  an  occasion.  And  when  the  drunken 
fellow  staggered  to  his  feet  and  mumbled  something 
unintelligible,  Mr.  Beecher  paused  again,  and  with 
his  winning,  half  reproachful  smile,  said:  "Will  some 
kind  person  take  our  friend  out  and  give  him  some 
cold  water — plenty  of  it — within  and  without."  "  As 
two  policemen  took  the  disturber  away,  the  tabernacle 
shook  with  cheers.  They  supposed  they  were  cheer- 
ing Mr.  Beecher's  wit,  instead  of  that  tremendous 
power  which  no  one  need  try  to  analyze."  1 

Mr.  Pond  thinks  the  most  remarkable  speech  of 
Beecher's  life,  was  given  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  in 
1877.  The  city  was  excited,  and  circulars  were  issued 
denouncing  Henry  Ward  Beecher  after  the  style  of 
the  Liverpool  posters  in  1863.  Anti-Beecher  poetry 
was  sold  by  the  newsboys  on  the  street.  The  people 
were  urged  not  to  hear  such  a  man,  but,  expecting 
some  excitement,  the  house  was  filled  with  a  noisy 
crowd.  Mr.  Pond  introduced  Mr.  Beecher  who  was 
greeted  with  applause  and  yells.  The  members  of 
the  Legislature  were  present.  Mr.  Beecher  spoke  on 
"  Hard  Times"  and  said,  in  his  first  sentence,  that 
there  was  a  law  of  God,  a  common  and  natural  law, 
that  brains  and  money  controlled  the  universe.  He 
said:  "This  law  cannot  be  changed  even  by  a  big 
Virginia  Legislature  which  opens  with  prayer  and 
closes  with  benediction."  As  the  law-makers  were 
there,  the  laugh  went  around  and  soon  the  house  was 


1  Knox's  "  Life  of  Beecher,"  pp.  340-341. 


486  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

applauding.  Mr.  Beecher  eulogized  Virginia  as  a 
commonwealth  who  bred  her  sons  for  Presidents,  and 
when  he  had  wrought  up  his  audience  with  enthu- 
siasm, he  exclaimed:  "  But  what  a  change  when  she 
came  to  breeding  her  sons  for  the  market/"  For  two 
hours  and  a  half  the  lecture  went  on.  Once  in  his 
room  at  the  hotel  Mr.  Beecher  sat  back  in  his  chair 
and  laughed,  Mr.  Pond  remarks,  as  much  as  to  say, 
"  We  have  captured  Richmond,  haven't  we?"  Many 
Richmond  notables  knocked  at  his  door  that  night  and 
tried  to  persuade  Mr.  Beecher  to  give  another  lec- 
ture. This  was  impossible,  but  the  people  came  in 
crowds  the  next  morning  at  seven  o'clock  to  see  him 
off.1 

Mr.  Beecher  appears  to  the  least  advantage  in  the 
oratory  of  memorial  occasions,  when  protracted  re- 
search, clearness,  and  accuracy  of  statement,  long- 
brooding  thoughtfulness  and  care,  logical  arrange- 
ment and  historical  imagination,  and  a  conscientious 
enthusiasm  for  literary  perfection,  like  that  of  Thucy- 
dides  and  Macaulay,  work  together  to  produce  such 
masterpieces  as  Lowell's  Harvard  address,  some  of 
the  discourses  of  Professor  Park,  several  of  the  ora- 
tions of  Edward  Everett,  George  William  Curtis, 
Ex-Governor  John  D.  Long,  and  Senator  George  F. 
Hoar,  and,  conspicuously,  the  greater  efforts  of  Dr. 
Richard  S.  Storrs.  Compared  with  Dr.  Storrs's  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  address  at  Harvard,  his  Wycliffe  oration 
and  his  sermon  at  the  seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  the 
American  Board,  Mr.  Beecher's  more  elaborate  written 
speeches     appear    rhetorically    crude.       His    genius 


1  "  Life,"  pp.  155-157- 


THE  ELOQUENT  ORATOR.  487 

worked  habitually  and  most  effectively  in  another 
way.  Eloquence,  with  him,  was  a  sudden,  fiery  in- 
spiration, kindling  his  gathered  materials  into  a 
rhetorical  illumination,  which,  if  not  always  seen  at 
its  highest  glow,  was  sometimes  more  startling  and 
marvelous  than  the  deliberate  and  premeditated  elo- 
quence of  other  men. 

It  is  hard  to  imagine  Shakespeare  correcting  and 
polishing  his  plays,  and  it  is  almost  equally  hard  to  im- 
agine Beecher  combing  the  locks  of  his  speeches,  wash- 
ing their  faces,  and  straightening  their  clothes,  in  order 
to  make  the  most  presentable  appearance  to  posterity. 
Furthermore,  Mr.  Beecher  was  so  continually  called 
upon  to  stand  and  deliver  his  thought,  that  he  may 
be  said  never  to  have  had  time  for  that  ceremonial 
eloquence  so  delightful  to  the  more  cultivated  Amer- 
ican people. 

But,  though  it  was  not  his  to  be  great  in  every 
form  of  oratory,  he  surpassed  others  in  the  highest 
forms.  His  one  speech,  delivered  in  five  parts  before 
the  English  people,  in  1863,  is  doubtless  the  grandest 
speech  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  will  bear  and 
repay  the  most  careful  analysis  and  most  pro- 
longed study.  Out  of  the  materials  gathered,  and 
the  convictions  matured  by  many  years  of  study, 
it  sprang  into  life  under  the  pressure  of  a  great 
opportunity. 

Speaking  from  his  pulpit  at  an  earlier  time,  as  the 
voice  of  outraged  humanity  condemning  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Bill,  there  flashed  forth  these  words:  "  I 
would  die  myself,  cheerfully  and  easily,  before  a  man 
should  be  taken  out  of  my  hands,  when  I  had  the 
power  to  give  him  liberty,  and  the  hound  was  after 


488  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

him  for  his  blood.  I  would  stand  as  an  altar  of  ex- 
piation between  slavery  and  liberty,  knowing  that, 
through  my  example,  a  million  men  would  live.  A  he- 
roic deed,  in  which  one  yields  up  his  life  for  others,  is 
his  Calvary.  It  was  the  hanging  of  Christ  on  that  hill- 
top that  made  it  the  highest  mountain  on  the  globe. 
Let  a  man  do  a  right  thing  with  such  earnestness 
that  he  counts  his  life  of  little  value,  and  his  example 
becomes  omnipotent.  Therefore  it  is  said  that  the 
blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
There  is  no  such  seed  planted  in  this  world  as  good 
blood!"  In  quoting  this  passage,  Washington 
Gladden  writes:  "  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  give  any 
indication  of  the  power  with  which  these  words  were 
spoken.  It  seemed  as  if  the  very  walls  quivered  with 
the  intensity  of  the  feeling.  In  the  crowded  church 
men's  eyes  were  blazing,  and  their  chests  were  heav- 
ing, and  tears  were  falling  on  the  pale  cheeks  of 
women;  it  was  one  of  those  exalted  moments  that  do 
not  often  visit  us  on  this  earth."  ' 

Even  when  Mr.  Beecher  was  far  less  than  his  great- 
est, his  eloquence,  with  voice  and  pen,  was  one  of  the 
potent  forces  for  the  elevation  of  his  countrymen. 
We  rightly  think  of  him  during  forty  years  of  his 
life  as  the  voice  of  the  nobler  sentiment  of  America, 
appealing  for  justice  and  humanity.  "  His  pulpit 
moved  around  in  the  daily  press,  and  was  on  the 
banks  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Missouri,  while,  as  the  old 
Scottish  clan  sprang  forth  from  the  bushes  when  their 
chieftain  gave  a  blast  on  his  trumpet,  the  audiences 
of  this  evangelist  issued  at  his  call  from  all  the  hills 


"Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  91. 


THE  ELOQUENT  ORATOR.  489 

of  the  East  and  the  waving  grass  of  the  West.  The 
public  services  of  Daniel  Webster  did  not  cover 
so  wide  a  space  of  time,  nor  did  the  great  career 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  take  in  so  many  circles  of  the 
sun." ' 


1  Prof.  David  Swing,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  pp.  34-35. 


CHAPTER     XLVII. 

HE    PREACHED    CHRIST. 

A  volume  might  easily  be  written  on  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  as  the  most  powerful  and  famous  preacher 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Professor  Phelps  has 
said:  "  The  best  test  of  a  good  sermon  is  the  instinct 
of  a  heterogeneous  audience.  That  is  not  good 
preaching  which  is  limited  in  its  range  of  adaptation 
to  select  audiences.  The  sermon  is  in  kind  the  grand- 
est thing  in  literature,  because  it  sways  the  mind 
without  distinction  of  class."  Few  men  ever  mingled 
"  truth  and  personality"  so  absolutely  as  Mr.  Beecher. 
He  preached  Christ  as  Christ  was  revealed  in  his  own 
heart. 

One  difference  between  him  and  Mr.  Spurgeon  was 
this:  Mr.  Spurgeon  received  the  truth  as  a  pearl 
of  great  price,  something  beautiful,  inestimable, 
unchangeable.  Mr.  Beecher  received  the  truth  as  a 
seed,  vital,  germinant,  expanding,  capable  of  being 
transformed  into  higher  manifestations.  During  his 
grand  life,  Spurgeon  was  telling  with  great  force  of 
language  and  fervor  of  feeling,  how  beautiful,  how 
wonderful,  was  this  divine  jewel.  During  his  long 
ministry  Mr.  Beecher  was  speaking  with  grateful 
enthusiasm  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  it  was  expand- 
ing in  his  soul  and  in  the  world.     Spurgeon  was  the 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  491 

greater  herald,  Beecher  was  the  greater  interpreter 
and  the  mightier  witness.  Spurgeon  preached  what 
he  received  at  the  start,  the  Gospel  that  came  to  him 
full-orbed  and  perfect. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  unable  to  permanently  adopt  what 
came  to  him  from  others.  He  learned  with  Robert- 
son that  a  man  must  struggle  alone;  his  own  view  of 
truth  and  that  only  will  give  him  rest.  He  can  only 
accept  the  views  of  other  minds  for  a  time.  "  I  have 
my  own  peculiar  temperament  ;  I  have  my  own 
method  of  preaching,  and  my  method  and  tempera- 
ment necessitate  errors.  I  am  not  worthy  to  be 
related  in  a  hundred  thousandth  degree  to  those 
happy  men  who  never  make  a  mistake  in  the  pulpit." 
Truth  seemed  to  him  not  a  thing  finished,  not  some- 
thing perfectly  revealed,  but  rather  as  something  yet 
to  be  attained  in  its  fulness.  He  was  not  disposed 
to  forget  the  words  of  the  Apostle,  that  we  know  in 
part,  and  he  felt  the  wisdom  of  Pascal  when  he  wrote: 
"One  may  make  an  idol  of  truth  even,  for  truth 
without  love  is  not  God;  it  is  only  His  reflection  and 
an  idol  which  we  ought  not  to  adore." 

Charles  H.  Spurgeon  seemed  greater  than  Mr. 
Beecher,  both  in  service  and  in  spiritual  power,  to  men 
whose  convictions  led  them  to  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
past.  He  was  a  man  of  granitic  faith,  and  rose  at  times 
into  the  spiritual  fervor  and  majesty  of  one  of  the  He- 
brew prophets.  His  intellectual  resources  were  large, 
but  they  belonged  to  a  lower  range  than  Mr.  Beecher's. 
The  great  Englishman  was  eminently  fitted,  as  a 
thinker  and  a  preacher,  to  reach  and  mould  the  sturdy 
and  unimaginative  lower  classes  of  his  countrymen. 
Mr.  Beecher's  was  a  far   loftier   mind,    more    daringr 


492  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

more  imaginative,  and  infinitely  more  fertile  in 
ideas. 

George  S.  Merriman,  his  associate  for  a  time  on  the 
Christian  Union,  said:  "  While  not  naming  him,  of 
course,  with  Plato  for  originality,  he  was  essentially 
of  Plato's  type  in  his  interpretation  of  the  universe, 
by  a  lofty  impassioned  idealism,  and  the  serene  light 
of  the  Athenian  sage  kindled  in  the  Christian  preacher 
into  a  warmer  and  tenderer  glow."  ' 

Spurgeon  had  great  qualities  of  character  which 
Mr.  Beecher  did  not  possess.  He  was  preeminent  as 
an  organizer,  a  builder  of  institutions,  and  into  some  of 
the  mistakes  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life  he  never  could  have 
fallen.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Beecher  was  a 
leader  of  leaders,  a  daring  explorer  in  the  world  of 
the  spirit,  a  Columbus  voyaging  over  unknown  seas 
of  thought.  He  believed  in  a  present  inspiration,  and 
hence  in  a  growing  understanding  of  God's  universe. 
"  If  his  life,"  said  General  Fremont,  "  had  been  cast  in 
Southern  Europe  or  Asia,  he  would  have  been  a  great 
prophet  and  swayed  nations." 

He  touched  not  only  the  people,  but  the  loftier 
minds.  It  is  reported  that  "  when  Charles  Kingsley 
heard  him  he  sat  and  wept  like  a  child  through  the 
whole  discourse,  and  when  it  was  concluded  he  said: 
'  Mr.  Beecher  has  said  the  very  things  I  have  been 
trying  to  say  ever  since  I  entered  the  Christian  pul- 
pit.' "2 

Dr.  Howson,  the  Dean  of  Chester,  who  had  been 
greatly  moved  by  Mr.  Beecher's  printed  and  spoken 
words,  sent  him  from  England  one  of  his   own  books 

1  "  Beecher's  Personality,"  John  R.  Howard,  p.  158. 
8  "  Beecher's  Personality,"  by  John  R.  Howard,  p.  159. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  493 

in  grateful  return  for  one  that  Mr.  Beecher  had  pre- 
sented him.  It  was  inscribed:  "For  gold  I  give  thee 
brass."  l 

The  witnesses  are  legion  to  the  strong  influence 
which  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  of  the  truth  of  God's 
Fatherhood,  had  exercised  over  their  minds.  Our  age 
has  been  affluent  in  great  or  famous  preachers — Dean 
Stanley,  Canon  Liddon,  Norman  McLeod,  Joseph 
Parker,  Professor  Park,  Professor  Phelps,  Pere  Hya- 
cinthe,  Dr.  Bushnell,  John  Hall,  Dr.  Collyer,  Dr.  Park- 
hurst,  E.H.Chapin,Mr.Punshon,  Bersier,Bishop  Simp- 
son, the  elder  Tyng,  Archdeacon  Farrar,  George  Dana 
Boardman,William  M.Taylor,DeWitt  Talmage, Bishop 
Huntington,  Theodore  L.  Cuyler,  Richard  S.  Storrs, 
Alexander  McLaren,  and  many  besides.  An  elaborate 
comparison  and  contrast  with  each  one  of  these  would 
show  their  superiority  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  each 
in  some  particular  excellence,  while  it  would  leave  his 
preeminence  untouched. 

The  late  Phillips  Brooks,  the  greatest  of  American 
preachers  since  the  sods  of  Greenwood  received  the 
body  of  one  greater  still,  might  be  brought  into  in- 
structive comparison  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  The 
pastor  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  was  in  some  respects 
a  more  attractive  figure  than  the  pastor  of  Plymouth 
Church,  Brooklyn.  He  shared  largely  in  Mr.  Beech- 
er's broad  humanity  of  spirit.  In  him  thought  and 
life,  intellectual  insight  and  spiritual  insight,  were 
marvelously  commingled.  One  has  truly  said:  "It  was 
his  happy  gift  to  predominate  like  the  sun  in  light  and 
heat."     Never  having  passed  through  the  trials  and 


"  Beecher's  Personality,"  John  R.  Howard,  p.  158. 


494  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

shadows  of  Mr.  Beecher's  life,  and  possessing  a  certain 
dignity  and  moral  loneliness  which  Mr.  Beecher  never 
had,  Phillips  Brooks  gained  a  hold  on  the  confidence 
and  love  of  many  of  the  more  highly  educated  minds 
of  the  American  people,  to  an  unparalleled  degree. 
Though  occupying  a  theological  position  more  ad- 
vanced than  Mr.  Beecher's,  he  preached  so  wisely  and 
positively  the  grand  Gospel  which  he  believed,  that 
he  never  excited  the  wide  theological  opposition  which 
made  Plymouth  pulpit  for  many  years  a  storm-center. 
And  yet  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Mr.  Beecher 
was  the  grandest  single  force  ever  given  to  the  Ameri- 
can pulpit.  In  Phillips  Brooks  there  is  a  higher 
and  steadier  average  of  spiritual  tone,  but  it  was 
not  given  to  him  to  rise  to  Beecher's  loftiest  heights 
of  inspiration.  Mr.  Beecher  touched  human  life,  like 
Shakespeare,  at  almost  every  point.  He  was  a  man 
of  the  people,  a  man  among  common  men,  as 
Phillips  Brooks  was  not.  Like  Lincoln,  he  had  the 
experience  of  a  life  of  poverty  and  hardship.  He 
possessed  that  humor  and  pathos  which  moved  the 
common  heart.  He  was  a  magnificent  force  in  moral 
reform,  a  great  editor  and  author,  and  takes  rank 
with  our  chief  statesmen  in  his  influence  over  politi- 
cal action.  Mr.  Beecher's  sermons  have  an  endless 
freshness  and  variety.  When  Phillips  Brooks  was 
going  to  preach  in  Westminster  Abbey,  a  friend  once 
asked  him  what  sermon  he  was  about  to  deliver,  and 
he  replied:  "  Sermon  ?  I  have  but  one."  By  this  he 
meant  that  his  message,  his  peculiar  message,  his 
personal  contribution  to  the  spiritual  forces  of  his 
time,  was  along  only  one  line.  What  this  was  it  is 
not  difficult   to   discover.     It  was    a   marvelous  dis- 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  495 

closure  of  the  possibilities  of  human  life,  because 
man  is  God's  son,  because  God  is  man's  loving  Father. 

Writing  of  Mr.  Beecher,  Prof.  George  B.  Will- 
cox  once  said:  "  I  suppose  that  is  true  of  him  as  a 
pulpit  orator  which  never  has  been  true  before  of  any- 
other  preacher  in  this  country,  and,  after  his 
departure,  it  will  never  be  true  again.  It  is  this:  if, 
in  any  company  of  intelligent  persons,  you  should 
speak  of  the  foremost  preacher  on  this  continent 
without  mentioning  his  name,  nine  persons  in  every 
ten  would  know  whom  you  meant."  ' 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Dean  Stanley,  Mr.  Spurgeon, 
Dr.  Allon,  and  many  others  have  remarked  the 
Shakespearean  quality  of  Mr.  Beecher's  intellect,  its 
absorbing  and  transforming  power,  its  vast  range  and 
versatility,  its  spontaneity,  its  comprehensiveness,  the 
mysterious  electrical  force  that  flashes  the  light  of 
imagination  over  common  things.  Dr.  Armitage 
wrote  of  him:  "  His  sermons  exhibit  a  larger  reading 
of  human  nature,  a  broader  use  of  philosophical 
inquiry,  a  fresher  application  of  Gospel  truths,  a 
clearer  induction  of  common  sense,  and  a  more  inde- 
pendent rectitude,  than  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  any- 
modern  preacher."  "  My  sober  impression,"  said  Dr. 
Parker,  "  is  that  Mr.  Beecher  could  preach  every  Sun- 
day in  the  year  from  the  first  verse  in  Genesis,  with- 
out giving  any  sign  of  intellectual  exhaustion  or  any 
failure  of  imaginative  force."  i 

His  preaching  had  a  quality  so  distinct  and  original 
that  it  cannot  be  easily  classed  with  that  of  any  other 
master  of  pulpit  eloquence.     It  had  the  peculiarities 


1  "  Life,"  p.  388.     2  "  Life,"  p.  299. 


496  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  his  nature  in  so  marked  a  degree  that  he  who 
thoroughly  knows  the  Beecher  sermon  knows  Henry 
Ward  Beecher.  His  whole  manhood  went  into  his 
preaching,  his  spiritual  life,  his  sense  of  God's  love, 
his  mental  nimbleness,  his  large  view  of  things,  his 
worship  of  Christ,  his  passion  for  righteousness,  his 
passion  for  souls,  his  broad  humanity,  his  observa- 
tions of  nature,  his  practical  philosophy,  his  powers 
of  analysis  and  of  comparison,  his  observations  of 
human  life,  his  prolific  imagination,  his  memories  of 
childhood,  his  recollections  of  Europe,  the  incidents 
of  his  anti-slavery  history,  his  great  heart-experiences, 
his  sorrows,  his  consolations  in  grief,  his  study  of  the 
Scriptures,  his  knowledge  of  contemporary  events  in 
National  and  political  life,  his  wit,  his  often  grotesque 
humor,  his  tenderness  toward  the  wayward  and  suf- 
fering, his  delight  in  little  children,  in  flowers,  in 
pictures,  and  in  jewels. 

His  preaching  centered  in  the  great  truths  of  God's 
love  revealed  in  the  suffering  Christ,  who  was  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh.  Grace  Greenwood  writes  that 
coming  out  of  Plymouth  Church.  "  The  sun  was 
always  shining  for  me  whatever  the  weather."  '  Men 
heard  him  not  as  a  dying  man  to  dying  men 
but,  as  Dr.  Holmes  has  said,  "as  a  living  man  to  liv- 
ing men." 

The  great-hearted  temperance  reformer,  Mr.  Francis 
Murphy,  who  has  brought  the  power  of  love  so 
mightily  to  the  sorely-tempted  and  fallen,  writes: 

"  I  think  it  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  of  my  life 
that  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  a   personal  acquaint- 


1  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  43. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  497 

ance  with  the  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  I  have  met 
him  frequently  and  have  spoken  on  the  same  platform 
with  him.  His  loving,  tender,  Christlike  ministry  has 
been  a  constant  inspiration  and  blessing  to  me.  He 
introduced  the  World's  Redeemer  to  publicans  and 
sinners.  His  beautiful  pictures  of  the  infinite  love  of 
Jesus  Christ  were  so  much  stronger  than  the  power 
of  sin  that  people  willingly  accepted  of  the  Gospel  of 
redeeming  love.  I  remember  him  as  a  great  light. 
His  words  were  like  drops  of  gentle  rain.  Wherever 
he  was,  it  was  summer.  All  nature  was  filled  with  the 
beauty  of  God.  He  was  like  a  great  tree  planted  by 
the  rivers  of  water  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in  his 
season.  His  leaf  shall  not  wither.  He  is  not  dead. 
He  lives.  He  speaks.  He  comforts.  He  blesses.  He 
gives  courage  and  hope  to  despairing  ones.  His 
memory  is  fragrant  with  the  odors  of  heaven."  ' 

Though  few  men  ever  suffered  as  he  did,  yet  he  had 
large  recompense  in  the  knowledge  that  he  had  healed 
broken  hearts  and  lifted  troubled  souls  into  the  realms 
of  peace.  "  If  I  should  die  to-morrow,  you  could  not 
take  it  from  me.  I  have  lived,  and-  what  I  have  done 
will  stand."  "  In  Mr.  Beecher's  hands,"  it  has  been 
said,  "the  sermon  never  affrighted  men,  never  froze 
men,  never  repelled  men."2 

People  sometimes  said  that  his  sermons  made  them 
feel  as  if  they  had  been  fed,  and  warmed,  and  clothed. 
In  both  temporary  and  permanent  effects,  no  ministry 
has  ever  been  more  conspicuous,  wider,  and,  in 
some  respects,  more  wholesome,  than  Henry  Ward 
Beecher's.      He  had  an  enthusiasm,  not.  for  svstems 


Letter,  June  13,  1893.      2  "  Parker's  Eulogy." 
32 


498  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

of  truth,  but  for  men.  He  looked  on  truth  not  as  a 
sword  to  be  polished,  and  kept  free  from  heretica 
stain,  so  much  as  a  weapon  by  which  to  smite  sin,  and 
a  tool  to  be  used  in  the  upbuilding  of  manhood.  He 
had  a  deeper  insight  into  the  human  heart  than  into 
speculative  theology.  He  set  forth  the  truth  of  the 
Gospel,  not  so  much  by  learning  and  logic,  as  by  a 
life  blazing  with  the  spirit  of  religion,  and  a  mind 
filled  with  the  three  reverences  of  which  Goethe 
speaks:  "  For  what  is  above  us,  for  our  equals,  for 
-what  is  beneath  us." 

He  was  emphatically  a  fisher  of  men.  Every  lis- 
tener felt,  "  He  means  me."  He  cast  his  hook  with 
great  dexterity.  His  eagerness  to  catch  men  was  as 
intense  as  that  passion  for  fishing  which  led  his 
father,  when  a  boy,  to  sit  by  the  branch  throughout 
training  day,  and  far  into  the  night,  reluctant  to  go 
until  the  bullheads  stopped  biting.  To  reach  the 
heart,  conscience,  and  life,  Mr.  Beecher  was  bold  to 
use  every  means  and  faculty  which  God  had  given 
him — imagination,  indignation,  pathos,  rebuke,  good- 
natured  humor,  stinging  wit,  and  a  Niagara  of  thun- 
derous and  passionate  appeals. 

Few  men  were  ever  so  open  to  divine  influences. 
He  had  all  the  requisites  of  the  great  preacher,  and 
all  of  them  in  superabundant  force  and  fulness.  He 
loved  God  and  his  fellow  men.  Love  was  the  sover- 
eign element  of  his  soul,  ruling  all  his  faculties  and 
inspiring  them.  He  had  the  prophet's  power  and  the 
prophet's  susceptibility.  What  he  saw  and  felt  he 
could  transform  instantly  into  speech  often  more 
effective  and  telling  than  that  elaborated  by  other 
men  with  painstaking  care. 


HE   PREACHED    CHRIST.  499 

The  great  constituency  of  eager  minds  whom  he 
reached  in  many  lands  was  made  possible  by  the 
newspaper  and  book  publishers  and  by  the  skillful 
reports  of  his  trusted  stenographer,  Mr.  T.  J.  Ellin- 
wood.  "  On  the  borders  of  Puget  Sound,  in  1874,  I 
met  a  former  parishioner  of  his  from  Indianapolis.  I 
said  to  him,  'Well,  what  do  you  think  of  your  old 
pastor  now?'  He  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket,  pulled 
out  two  or  three  copies  of  '  Plymouth  Pulpit '  and 
answered,  '  What  does  that  look  like  ? '  Soon  after 
this  I  met  a  man  way  up  on  the  Snake  River.  His 
home  was  in  Idaho.  I  asked  him  about  his  church 
privileges.  'Oh,' said  he,  'we  have  no  churches  up 
there  on  the  Palouse,  but  a  few  of  us  get  together  and 
read  "  Plymouth  Pulpit "  and  we  have  pretty  good 
preaching  I  tell  you.'  "  ' 

"  While  in  Auckland,  New  Zealand,  I  had  occasion 
to  go  into  a  book-store,  and  among  the  first  things  I 
saw  upon  the  counter  were  the  sermons  of  Plymouth 
Pulpit.  .  .  .  Near  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane, 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  there  is  an  old  olive-tree;  the 
guide  or  dragoman  will  tell  you  that  it  is  known  as 
'  Beecher.'  I  know  of  scarcely  a  paper  or  book  of 
note,  throughout  the  nations  of  the  world  in  which 
my  wanderings  have  led  me,  of  high  repute,  in  which 
I  have  not  seen  his  sayings  quoted  and  his  sermons 
reported. a  "  The  greatest  preacher  on  this  planet," 
as  Robert  Collyer  called  him,  "reached  through  the 
press,"  as  another  has  said,  "  members  of  a  congrega- 
tion which  St.  Peter's  could  not  have  held  had  it  been 
twenty  times  as  large." 

1  Rev.  A.  H.  Bradford,  D.D.,  "  Life,"  p.  354. 

2  Philip  Phillips,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  92. 


500  HENRY   WARD     BEECHER. 

Even  if  he  does  not  enter  into  an  analysis  of  his  pow- 
ers, the  student  should  remember  that  Mr.  Beecher  mag- 
nified his  office,  that  he  cherished  the  highest  estimate 
of  the  glory  of  preaching.  Before  the  Board  of  Lon- 
don Congregational  Ministers  in  1886,  he  gave  this 
testimony:  "I  suppose  I  have  had  as  many  oppor- 
tunities as  any  man  here  or  any  living  man,  for  what 
are  called  honors  and  influence  and  wealth.  The 
doors  have  been  open,  the  golden  doors,  for  years.  I 
want  to  bear  witness  that  the  humblest  labor  which  a 
minister  of  God  can  do  for  a  soul,  for  Christ's  sake, 
is  grander  and  nobler  than  all  learning,  than  all  in- 
fluence and  power,  than  all  riches."  '  Or,  as  he  said 
of  the  Christian  ministry  at  the  meeting  of  the  Evan- 
gelical Alliance  in  1873,  in  the  Madison  Square  Pres- 
byterian Church,  New  York:  "  It  is  the  sweetest  in 
its  substance,  the  most  enduring  in  its  choice,  the 
most  content  in  its  poverty  and  limits,  if  your  lot  is 
cast  in  places  of  scarcity,  more  full  of  crowned  hopes, 
more  full  of  whispering  messages  from  those  gone 
before,  nearer  to  the  threshold,  nearer  to  the  throne, 
nearer  to  the  brain,  to  the  heart  that  was  pierced,  but 
that  lives  for  ever  and  says,  '  Because  I  live  ye  shall 
live  also.' " 

It  was  Mr.  Beecher's  tremendous  personal  experi- 
ences that  helped  to  give  his  preaching  such  a  living 
and  life-giving  power.  His  words  were  vital  with  the 
life  of  God  that  throbbed  through  his  great  heart. 
He  knew  that,  although  more  than  most  preachers  he 
himself  preached  Christian  ethics,  the  preacher's 
chief  strength   comes   from  God.     "  Abiding  in    the 


1  "  Life,"  pp.  615-616. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  501 

Infinite  and  Eternal  prepares  one,"  he  said,  "  to  bring 
to  the  task  of  preaching  something  more  than 
analytical  power,  than  secular  narrowness." 

It  was  not  his  sermons  alone  that  touched  with 
new  life  the  multitudes  that  ever  thronged  to  hear 
him.  His  prayers  were  a  preparation  for  the  preach- 
ing. "  His  sermons  touched  me  like  shocks  from  a 
spiritual  battery,  but  his  prayers  were  like  the  very 
breathing  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  ...  I  think  few 
men  have  been  able  so  to  open  the  window  of  heaven 
and  talk  with  God  face  to  face.  Few  ministers  have 
been  able  to  make  their  congregations  feel  that  the 
very  heavens  were  raining  mercy  upon  their  bowed 
heads."  ' 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  his  power 
in  the  pulpit  was  his  thorough  acquaintance  with 
men  and  his  eminent  ability  to  project  himself  into 
other  people's  lives,  analyzing  their  motives  and  their 
troubles  and  showing  himself  the  wise  physician  of 
the  human  soul.  Mr.  Halliday  said:  "  While  scarcely 
any  pastoral  work  is  performed  by  him,  yet  his 
sermons  manifest  a  most  intimate  knowledge  of  his 
people's  spiritual  condition."  Though  a  man  of 
strong  emotions  and  gifted  with  large  dramatic  sense, 
he  moved  on  men  through  the  conscience  before  he 
appealed  to  emotion  and  sentiment. 

"His  sermons,"  as  Lyman  Abbot  has  said,  "are 
philosophical  in  their  cast  and  make-up."  This  is 
certainly  true  of  many  of  them,  especially  in  the 
beginning,  but,  as  his  heart  warms  and  his  imagina- 
tion kindles,  he  becomes  more  practical,  experimental, 


1  Rev.  Albert  H.  Heath,  "  Life"  p.  356. 


502  HENRY    WARD     BF.ECHER. 

illustrative,  and  hortatory.  He  was  a  pioneer  among 
preachers  who  have  learned  to  bring  truth  down  to 
date,  and,  instead  of  bombarding  antiquity  and 
preaching  against  sin  in  general  or  making  it  hot  for 
the  antediluvians,  he  shot  forth  his  arrows  in  the  day 
of  battle  against  present  foes.  He  gained  a  great 
advantage  over  most  men  in  preaching,  because  he 
had  a  definite  method  of  analysis.  He  divided 
character  into  elements.  Whether  the  division  was 
philosophical  or  not,  it  furnished  him  a  vast  homi- 
letic  advantage.  Instead  of  declaiming  against  a 
cloud-bank  called  sin,  he  drew  a  strong  bow  on  cer- 
tain tigers,  wolves,  hyenas,  and  swine  that  are  always 
prowling  and  growling  within  the  human  spirit. 

A  number  of  students  from  Union  Theological 
Seminary  were  present  one  evening  in  Plymouth 
Church,  in  April,  1875,  and  Mr.  Beecher  contrasted 
the  theological  examination  which  young  ministers 
passed  through,  in  which  they  told  about  what  they 
had  learned  of  Creation  and  Adam's  Fall,  and  the 
Flood  and  Moses,  with  the  questions  he  would  put  to 
them  in  order  to  make  ministers  fit  for  the  time.  "  Do 
you  know  how  I  would  proceed  if  I  had  the  training 
and  examining  of  these  young  men  ?  I  would  ask 
them  what  they  knew  of  the  daily  papers.  I  would 
ask  them  what  they  think  of  the  lizardly  sneaks  that 
make  up  the  New  York  City  Council."  ' 

All  men  know  how  marvelous  was  Mr.  Beecher's 
power  of  illustration.  Dr.  E.  P.  Ingersoll,  of  Brook- 
lyn, said — "  His  mind  is  analogical  rather  than  logi- 
cal."    1 1  is  illustrations  are  taken   from   almost   every 


1  Rev.  Frank  Russell,  D.D.,  "  Life,"  p.  372. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  503 

subject  and  object  which  his  mind  and  eye  ever 
beheld — from  his  father,  mother,  aunt,  teachers,  the 
farm,  the  orchard,  the  garden;  from  all  the  processes 
of  nature  and  husbandry;  from  flowers,  trees,  summer, 
winter,  autumn,  spring,  the  barn,  the  barn-yard,  the 
harvest-field,  the  horses,  dogs,  and  swine;  from  the 
mountain  streams,  the  clouds,  the  sky,  the  sun;  from 
history,  literature,  theological  writers,  all  the  proc- 
esses of  manufacturing,  book-making,  cloth-making, 
paper-making;  from  all  the  phenomena  of  light,  the 
gray  morning,  the  evening  glories,  the  silent  and 
shining  stars.  Illustrations  that  make  the  reader 
laugh  abound.  In  this  he  followed  the  great  preach- 
ers of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  also  the  habit  of  Luther 
and  some  of  the  greater  reformers.  "  Does  vice,  then," 
said  Lessing,  "deserve  so  much  respect  that  a  Chris- 
tian may  not  laugh  at  it  ? " 

One  characteristic  of  the  Beecher  sermon  is  its 
originality.  He  was  a  wise  student  of  other  men's 
opinions,  but  he  revolved  and  recast  all  that  entered 
his  mind,  and  when  it  came  out  in  words  it  had  a 
stamp  as  clear-cut  as  Carlyle's  or  De  Quincey's.  He 
enjoyed  being  in  the  vanguard.  The  elation  of  the 
explorer  was  his.  His  daring  genius  may  have  led 
him  into  speculations  that  were  mere  guesses,  but 
even  his  mistakes  are  instructive.  If  anybody  had 
put  to  him  the  question  that  was  put  to  Socrates,  as 
reported  by  Plato  in  the  "  Gorgias," — "  Do  you  not 
think  you  are  refuted  when  you  say  what  no  other 
man  would  say?" — he  might  have  answered  that  it 
was  each  man's  privilege  to  see  and  say  things  as  God 
gave  him  vision  and   understanding. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Mr.  Beecher's    later 


504  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

doctrinal  views,  it  must  be  said  that  his  theology  was 
always  a  working  theology,  something  which  he  could 
preach.  Sharing  so  fully  in  the  life  of  his  time,  put- 
ting himself  into  the  intellectual  position  of  those 
without  the  Church,  he  was  able,  with  singular  skill, 
to  meet  their  difficulties.  Hon.  Andrew  D.  White 
has  said:  "  Some  of  his  theological  statements  seemed 
to  me  really  inspired.  He  seemed  to  have  a  deep 
insight  into  the  great  truths  of  religion  and  to  be  able 
to  present  them  to  others,  opening  up  at  times  great 
new  vistas  of  truth  by  a  single  flash." 

He  believed  that  Christianity  is  represented  by  the 
sum  of  all  the  sects,  not  by  any  one  of  them.  Hence 
those  who  value  most  in  a  sermon  conformity  to  their 
own  theological  and  ecclesiastical  views,  will  not 
always  be  pleased  with  the  sermons  of  Henry  Ward 
Beecher.  He  looked  upon  the  Church  and  its  organi- 
zation and  ordinances,  and  upon  truth  itself,  as  means 
to  the  great  end  of  building  up  Christian  manhood. 
He  said:  "  I  immerse,  I  sprinkle,  and  I  have  in  some 
instances  poured,  and  I  never  saw  that  there  was  any 
difference  in  the  Christianity  that  was  made."  He 
believed  that  God  had  given  him  a  great  work  to  do, 
especially  in  his  last  years,  in  bringing  the  Church 
into  harmony  with  the  conclusions  of  modern  inves- 
tigation. He  declared  himself  in  1885  to  be  in  the 
fullest  sympathy  with  revivals  and  revival  work.  It 
is  important  that  this  should  be  remembered  by  those 
who  were  troubled  by  some  of  his  utterances  and 
feared  that  in  his  devotion  to  evolution  he  had  left 
the  old  evangelic  foundations. 

Of  no  man  since  Paul  can  it  be  said  more  truly 
than   of   Mr.    Beecher,  that  with   his  whole   heart  he 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  505 

preached  Christ.  Not  one  of  the  kings  of  the  pulpit 
has  been  a  more  rapturous  devotee  of  Christ.  Christ 
was  his  God,  his  Redeemer,  his  Friend.  So  absolute 
was  his  worship  of  Christ  and  devotion  to  Him  that 
he  never  for  an  instant  cherished  the  thought  of 
ranking  Him  with  the  greatest  of  the  sons  of  men. 
The  heart  of  Christ  was  the  Divine  heart  on  which 
he  leaned.  The  sayings  of  Christ  were  the  germs  of 
all  heavenly  wisdom,  and  he  would  no  more  have 
thought  of  comparing  the  greatest  sermons  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  and  Chalmers,  or  the  greatest  speeches  of 
Demosthenes  and  Burke,  with  Christ's  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  than  we  would  have  compared  the  fine 
jewelry  of  a  king's  diadem  with  the  unwasting  stellar 
fires  of  the  Milky  Way. 

He  realized  that  whatever  excellence  he  attained  in 
preaching  was  only  fragmentary.  He  knew  that  in 
order  to  preach,  a  man  must  have  native  gifts  and 
aptitudes — physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual ;  he 
must  not  be  lacking  either  in  enthusiasm  or  in  judg- 
ment, in  discipline  or  in  feeling,  in  training  or  in 
spontaneousness  ;  he  must  have  communion  with 
God  and  community  of  spirit  with  men;  and  he 
realized  that,  however  greatly  he  had  been  gifted 
and  blessed,  his  utterances  were  vastly  imperfect. 
He  had  a  glimpse  of  the  glory  and  possibility  of 
preaching  which  he,  himself,  never  reached.  "  There 
have  often  been  times  when  I  would  have  given  all 
the  world  if  I  could  have  gone  into  the  pulpit  and 
told  what  I  felt  and  not  simply  what  I  thought.  T 
have  had  moods  when  writing  as  well  as  when  read- 
ing that  I  could  not  describe.  I  have  had  states  in 
care  and  trouble  when  I  was  lifted  above  troubles  and 


506  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

cares,  and  when  I  saw  things  so  serenely  beautiful, 
that  nothing  would  have  been  too  much  to  give  if  I 
could  make  other  people  see  them  so;  but  I  could 
not.  I  think  I  know  what  Paul  meant  when  he  said 
he  went  into  the  seventh  heaven,  and  saw  things  that 
were  not  lawful — in  other  words,  that  it  was  not 
possible  to  utter."  ' 

No  one  knows  Henry  Ward  Beecher  who  has  not 
felt  how  completely  loyal  he  was  to  Jesus  Christ. 
"  No  man,"  said  Dr.  Allon,  "  has  more  fully  or  fer- 
vently preached  Christ  as  the  Divine  Son  of  God." 
His  theological  vagaries,  the  bold  flights  of  his  imag- 
ination and  speculation,  never  carried  him  away  from 
Christ.  He  said  that  the  hymn  which  he  wished  to 
have  sung  at  the  last  service  over  his  body  was: 

"  When  I  survey  the  wondrous  Cross 
On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory  died, 
My  richest  gain  1  count  but  loss, 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride." 

Mrs.  Stowe  said  of  him:  "He  has  been  a  student 
of  Huxley,  Spencer,  and  Darwin,  enough  to  alarm 
the  old  school,  and  yet  remained  so  ardent  a  super- 
naturalist  as  equally  to  repel  the  radicals  and  de- 
structionists  in  religion.  He  and  I  are  Christ-wor- 
shipers, adoring  Him  as  the  image  of  the  invisible 
God."2  He  once  said:  "There  is  no  flower  in  all  the 
field  that  owes  so  much  to  the  sun  as  I  do  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Undoubtedly  much  of  the  popular  interest  excited 


1  From  Mr.  T.  J.  Ellinwood's  "Reminiscences." 
2"  Life  of  Mrs.  Stowe,"  p.  477. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  507 

by  his  preaching  in  later  years,  came  from  his  vigor- 
ous onslaughts  upon  offending  dogmas.  Others  have 
noted  the  fact  that  he  often  set  up  men  of  straw,  but 
he  attacked  them  as  if  they  were  steel-clad  knights. 
His  soul  was  so  full  of  faith  in  the  living  Christ  that 
he  had  no  sympathy  with  the  fears  of  men  who  im- 
agine that,  when  their  theories  of  the  Bible  are 
shaken,  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  in  peril.  He  said  of 
the  Bible:  "  It  is  the  most  betrashed  book  in  the 
world.  Coming  to  it  through  commentaries,  is  much 
like  looking  at  a  landscape  through  garret  windows 
o'er  which  generations  of  unmolested  spiders  have 
spun  their  webs."  "  You  may  sink  the  Bible  to  the 
bottom  of  the  ocean,  and  man's  obligations  to  God 
will  be  unchanged."  This  is  undoubtedly  true,  and 
yet  was  not  this  truth  in  peril  of  reaching  some 
minds  in  such  a  way  that  they  suspected  Mr. 
Beecher's  willingness  to  sink  the  Bible  into  the  sea? 
Most  men  know  that  it  was  Mr.  Beecher's  custom 
usually  to  preach,  not  from  a  written  manuscript,  but 
from  a  more  or  less  full  outline,  from  which,  however, 
he  frequently  departed.  The  following  is  a  copy  of 
an  outline  from  which  he  preached  Sunday  evening, 
December  7,  1875: 

I.  Repentance,  is  such  a  sense  of  evil  as  inspires  one  to  turn 
from  it.     In  single  particulars. 

1.  It  happens  in  wordly  things  every  day. 

2.  It  is  common  to  social  life. 

II.  It  may  include  a  whole  line  01   conduct,  rather  than  a 
single  action. 

III.  It  may  have  respect  to  one's  whole  career  and  charac- 
ter. 

IV.  In  all  cases — two  elements. 


508  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

i.    Avulsion  from  sin  or  evil. 

2.     Turning  to  good. 

This  last  of  supreme  practical  importance. 

The  shadow  of  grain  destroys  most  of  weeds — 

Right  action  the  method  of  correcting  bad — 

There  must  be  an  outlet  to  mental  forces.     If  stopped  in 

one  direction,  should  open  in  another. 
Dan.  4:  27.     Break  off  thy  sins  by  righteousness. 
V.     Men  need  help, 

1.  From  fellow  men, 

2.  From  surrounding  circumstances, 

3.  Especially  from  Spirit  of  God. 

I.  Men  may  make  repentance  of  minor  sins,  a  shield  for 
greater.     Right  so  far,  but  wrong  in  whole. 

II.  Men  hide  from  selves  the  extent  of  sin,  the  need  of  re- 
pentance, the  evil  and  danger  of  course,  self-flattery. 

III.  Superficial  repentance. 

IV.  Repentance  not  followed  up  and  confirmed,  emotion  not 
action. 

V.  Solemn  appeal  to  all  whether  in  conduct,  habits,  char- 
acter.    Ought  not  to  go  higher? 

VI.  K  of  H  [Kingdom  of  Heaven]  is  near  to  many  of  you! ' 

"  In  his  sermons,"  says  a  writer  in  The  Nation, 
"there  is  no  evidence  of  carelessness;  there  is  in  each 
a  complete  plan  steadfastly  held  to  from  beginning 
to  end."  He  was  all  the  while  preparing  his  sermons, 
reading  whenever  he  had  a  spare  moment,  visiting 
workshops,  observing  men,  but  rarely  deciding  what 
sermon  he  would  preach  until  Sunday  morning.  One 
preparation  for  Sunday  was  doing  nothing  on  Satur- 
day that  required  exhausting  thought.  He  was  found 
resting  at  Peekskill,  gazing  in  the  shop  windows, 
diverting  his  mind  by  looking  at  the  gems  at  Tiffany's, 


1  Kindly  given  by  Rev.  S.  B.  Halliday. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  509 

taking  good  sleep,  spending  the  evening  with  his 
family  or  friends. 

Sunday  morning  he  was  happy,  cheerful,  abstemi- 
ous, somewhat  absorbed.  He  was  soon  locked  in  his 
room,  not  to  be  disturbed,  and  there  he  sketched  in 
large  outline  his  sermon.  "As  the  bell  rang  for  the 
last  time,  about  fifteen  minutes  before  the  opening  of 
the  service,  he  would  come  out,  his  papers  thrown 
hastily  together,  held  in  his  hand  or  thrust  in  his 
coat-pocket,  and  with  scarcely  a  word  to  anyone,  put 
on  his  hat,  take  Mrs.  Beecher  on  his  arm,  and  start  for 
church."  ' 

He  sometimes  changed  his  topic  after  entering  the 
pulpit.  The  music,  the  Scriptural  reading,  the  prayer, 
usually  fed  his  own  soul  and  prepared  him  for  that 
hour  in  which  he  enchained  the  attention  of  men  with 
the  truth  of  God. 

He  was  a  constant  student  in  his  own  way,  and  be- 
lieved with  Chrysostom,  that  study  is  even  more 
indispensable  for  the  eloquent  than  for  the  ordinary 
preacher.  "  Variety,  vivacity,  and  velocity  of  appeal" 
are  mentioned  by  Dr.  Storrs  as  essentials  to  the  great 
modern  sermon,  and  there  was  no  lack  of  these  qual- 
ities in  the  preaching  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

Much  as  he  made  fun  of  theologians  and  commen- 
taries, he  studied  both  and  valued  both.  His  son-in- 
law,  Rev.  Samuel  Scoville,  was  astonished  at  "  the 
evidences  found  in  note-books  and  books  of  analysis 
of  his  broad  and  painstaking  study  of  the  Gospels." 
He  carried  Stanley's  Commentary  on  the  Epistles  to 
the    Corinthians    for   weeks    in  his    carpet-bag,  and 


1  "  Biography,"  p.  599. 


5IO  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

studied  and  notated  it  from  beginning  to  end.  Scores 
of  little  note-books  were  filled  with  his  thoughts, 
points  for  sermons,  etc.  "  A  singular  feature  of  his 
productive  power,"  writes  Mr.  R.  W.  Raymond,  "was 
that  it  seldom  lasted  more  than  a  couple  of  hours." 
He  seemed  to  be  under  the  control  of  his  genius.  His 
mind  worked  under  certain  laws  which  he  well  learned. 
"  I  am  brooding  my  Thanksgiving  sermon,"  he  wrote 
in  1852,  "  but  the  chickens  will  not  yet  run  out  from 
under  the  wing."  "  He  had  three  distinct  mental 
states,  the  passive  or  resting,  the  receptive  and  in- 
quiring or  filling  up,  and  the  spontaneously  active  or 
giving-forth  state."  ' 

The  tide  of  life  was  strong  in  him,  but  it  was  not 
always  at  the  full.  As  with  some  of  the  great  poets, 
there  was  a  marked  periodicity  in  his  mental  pro- 
ductiveness. He  seemed  to  know  when  he  must  rest. 
He  recognized  the  value  of  sleep.  The  flowers  of  his 
imagination  and  reason  would  often  come  to  miracu- 
lous brilliancy  by  a  sudden  burst  of  creative  force  and 
then  the  orchard  of  his  mind  would  refuse  for  a  while 
to  put  forth  any  further  blossoms.  In  creative  work 
he  was  a  man  of  moods.  He  often  said:  "  I  cannot 
work  unless  the  sap  flows."  But  he  was  always  indus- 
triously filling  in  or  getting  his  accumulations  into 
shape,  vitalizing  them  with  conscious  and  unconscious 
thought. 

He  was  not  one  of  the  artistic  preachers  "  who  work 
literary  miracles  on  paper."  Preaching  with  him  was 
too  earnest  and  practical  a  business  for  him  to  attempt 
such  wonders.     His  miracles  are  numerous  enough, 

1  "  Life,"  p.  657. 


HE    PREACHED    CHRIST.  511 

but  they  are  like  those  of  the  May  sunshine,  startling 
the  earth  with  violets.  However  lofty  his  idealism 
and  eagle-winged  his  nights  of  imagination,  there  is 
always  a  healthy  and  strong  foundation  of  sturdy 
common  sense  which  may  be  truly  called  a  general 
characteristic  of  his  preaching. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  his  Church  helped  to 
make  him  eloquent  and  powerful.  With  that  great 
and  generous  congregation  back  of  him,  he  had  the 
means  of  crystallizing  his  generous  ideas  into  gener- 
ous deeds.  He  could  not  only  point  out  the  lessons  of 
the  Chicago  Fire,  but  he  could  secure  on  one  Sunday 
morning  from  his  people  a  gift  of  five  thousand  dol- 
lars for  the  Chicago  sufferers.  The  wholesomeness 
of  Mr.  Beecher's  preaching  is  its  close  practical  con- 
nection with  all  human  life.  He  was  always  a 
preacher.  Whether  writing  editorials,  or  speaking 
against  slavery,  or  lecturing  on  the  burdens  of  society; 
whether  we  find  him  in  the  White  Mountains,  where 
for  years  he  sought  rest  from  hay  fever,  or  journey- 
ing with  the  Brooklyn  Thirteenth  Regiment,  whose 
chaplain  he  became  in  1878,  it  is  the  great-hearted 
preacher  who  comes  before  us  and  speaks  to  us  with 
powers  so  wonderful  that  "  it  is  scarcely  more  neces- 
sary to  certify  to  them,"  as  Senator  Conkling  once 
said,  "than  to  certify  to  the  light  of  the  sun." 

And,  then,  Mr.  Beecher  spake  in  words  which  went 
to  the  universal  heart.  The  people  heard  him  gladly 
and  read  him  gratefully,  and  will  read  him  for  many 
years  to  come.  What  he,  himself,  thought  of  literary 
style  and  practiced  as  well,  is  suggested  by  a  remark 
in  one  of  his  Yale  Lectures,  where  he  contrasts  John 
Bunyan  and  Dr.  Johnson.    It  indicates  his  preference 


512  HENRY    WARD     REECHER. 

for  Saxon  words  and  homely  idioms.  "  Bunyan  is 
to-day  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of  water  that 
bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in  his  season;  his  leaf  also 
shall  not  wither.  Johnson,  with  all  his  glory,  lies 
like  an  Egyptian  king,  buried  and  forgotten  in  the 
pyramid  of  his  fame." 

He  thought  "  great  sermons  "  a  temptation  of  the 
devil.  He  had  no  great  sermons  reserved  for  special 
occasions,  and  yet  in  the  course  of  his  ministry  there 
came  times  when  even  those  who  heard  him  con- 
stantly were  overwhelmed  with  astonishment  by  the 
grandeur  and  power  of  his  utterance. 

Mr.  Beecher  needs  to  be  read  largely  in  order  to 
be  understood  adequately,  and  yet  the  following  ser- 
mons may  be  named  as  giving  an  idea  of  the  variety, 
force,  adaptation,  and  occasional  sublimity  of  his 
pulpit  speech:  The  Sepulchre  in  the  Garden,  The 
Communion  of  Saints,  The  Courtesy  of  Conscience, 
What  is  Christ  to  Me?  The  Primacy  of  Love,  The 
Christian  Life  a  Struggle. 

Dr.  Bushnell  affected  many  thoughtful  minds  more 
powerfully  than  Beecher,  but  looking  at  the  full 
breadth  of  his  influence,  especially  over  the  younger 
ministry,  noting  how  widely  his  themes  and  lines  of 
thought  are  reproduced  in  the  general  preaching  of 
the  day,  we  see  that  to  Mr.  Beecher,  rather  than  to 
Dr.  Bushnell,  belongs  Professor  Hoppin's  designation 
of  "  Epoch-making."  He  has  been  likened,  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Hillis,  to  a  man,  who,  crossing  a  continent, 
scattered  his  thoughts,  like  handfuls  of  seeds,  every- 
where.    The  harvests  are  now  appearing. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

"SECURUS   JUDICAT    ORBIS   TERRARUM." 

Henry  Ward  Beecher's  death  was  mourned,  not 
only  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken,  but 
by  the  great  men  of  France  and  throughout  Germany, 
where,  as  Baron  Tauchnitz  wrote,  "  His  memory  will 
endure  among  the  great  and  good  of  all  lands." 

On  the  24th  of  June,  1891,  his  statue,  by  John  Quincy 
Adams  Ward,  was  unveiled  in  front  of  the  Brooklyn 
City  Hall.  Thirty-five  thousand  dollars  had  been 
contributed  by  the  friends  of  the  great  man — men, 
women,  and  children  of  all  creeds  and  nationalities. 
It  was  unveiled  by  his  granddaughter,  Gertrude 
Roxana  Beecher.  Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Rev.  S. 
B.  Halliday.  Rev.  Charles  H.  Hall,  D.D  ,  of  Trinity 
Episcopal  Church,  introduced  Mayor  Chapin,  who 
presided  on  the  occasion.  Three  hundred  children, 
from  the  Sunday-schools  of  Plymouth  Church  and  of 
the  Bethel  and  Mayflower  Missions,  sang  Mr. 
Beecher's  favorite  hymn, 

"  Love  divine,  all  love  excelling," 

accompanied   by  the  band   of   the   Thirteenth  Regi- 
ment.    After  a  portion  of    Beethoven's    Fifth   Sym- 
33 


514  HENRY   WARD     BEECHER. 

phony,  so  beloved  by  Mr.  Beecher,  had  been  played, 
President  Seth  Low,  of  Columbia  College,  made  an 
address,  and  after  the  singing  of  "America,"  Rabbi 
Gottheil,  of  New  York,  pronounced  the  closing 
benediction. 

On  a  pedestal  of  dark  Quincy  granite,  designed  by 
the  great  architect,  Richard  M.  Hunt,  rises  the  statue 
of  Mr.  Beecher,  of  heroic  size,  and  representing  him 
as  a  man  of  great  courage  and  sympathy.  Mr. 
Beecher  stands  with  overcoat  on,  and  his  soft  felt  hat 
in  hand,  as  if  he  had  stopped  for  a  moment  in  a 
walk,  or  was  about  to  address  an  out-door  assemblage. 
On  the  pedestal  is  the  figure  of  a  negro  girl  raising  a 
branch  of  palm  to  show  the  gratitude  of  her  people. 
There  are  also  two  other  graceful  figures  represent- 
ing two  white  children,  a  boy  seated  and  endeavoring 
to  support  the  figure  of  a  girl,  who  is  trying  to  push 
a  garland  up  to  the  plinth. 

What  will  live  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  ?  Most  of 
all,  his  life  and  work.  He  was  a  man  of  action. 
What  he  did,  backed  by  what  he  was,  makes  him  one 
of  the  heroes  of  history.  Most  men  know  little  of 
Luther's  writings,  but  Luther  confronting  the  Diet 
of  Worms  is  the  most  splendid  figure  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  fifty  years  hence, 
will  be  a  name  to  conjure  by,  like  Luther  and  Wesley, 
Hampden  and  Chatham.  Peter  McCleod,  of  Glasgow, 
said:  "Had  Mr.  Beecher  only  come  to  England  two 
years  sooner,  there  would  have  been  little  sympathy 
in  Britain  for  the  slave-holding  South."  Joseph 
Cook  said,  "  I  suppose  he  drove  Louis  Napoleon  out 
of  Mexico  by  that  series  of  lectures.  It  is  certain 
that  he  did   as   much   as  any  other  one  American  to 


"SECURUS  JUDICAT    ORBIS    TERRARUM.  515 

prevent  a  recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy 
by  the  British  Government."  1 

"  Could  his  compatriots  know  what  Mr.  Beecher 
did  for  America  in  that  unparalleled  campaign,  no 
marble  in  Carrara  would  be  too  fine  for  them  to  buy 
and  carve,  that  his  bust,  classical  in  an  artistic  eye, 
might  fill  the  proudest  niche  in  the  proudest  temple 
of  his  country."  3 

"  It  was  a  fitting  recognition  of  his  services  in  Eng- 
land," as  President  Hayes  has  said,  "  that  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  should  replace  upon  Fort  Sumter  the  flag 
which  disunion  and  slavery  had  pulled  down."  3  Mr. 
Beecher  was  the  greatest  spokesman  in  our  generation 
for  the  spirit  of  humanity.  Great  varieties  of  char- 
acter and  genius  were  wrapped  up  in  this  one  soul. 
Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis  wrote  in  The  Contemporary  Review, 
in  1872:  "  It  would  be  no  compliment  to  call  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  the  American  Spurgeon.  He  may  be 
that,  but  he  is  more.  If  we  can  imagine  Mr.  Spur- 
geon and  Mr.  John  Bright,  with  a  cautious  touch  of 
Mr.  Maurice  and  a  strong  tincture  of  the  late  F.  W. 
Robertson, — if,  I  say, — it  is  possible  to  imagine  such 
a  compound  being,  brought  up  in  New  England  and 
at  last  securely  fixed  in  a  New  York  pulpit,  we  shall 
get  a  product  not  unlike  Henry  Ward  Beecher."  And 
yet  it  would  not  be  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

There  was  that  in  him  as  divinely  original  as  any- 
thing in  Shakespeare.  There  is  a  peculiar  quality  in 
his  thought,  and  there  was  a  peculiar  power  in  his 


1  "  Boston  Monday  Lectures,  1888,"  p.  145. 

2  "  Parker's  Eulogy,"  p.  23. 

8  Beecher  "  Memorial,"  p.  19. 


516  HENRY   WARD    BEECHER. 

presence  and  words  that  belonged  to  him  alone.  His 
magnetic,  flaming,  positive  nature  affected  men  in 
such  diverse  ways,  striking  them  at  such  different 
angles,  that  they  became  usually  his  warm  friends  or 
his  bitter  enemies.  Probably  he  shared  more  largely 
than  any  other  the  honor,  which  came  to  his  Master, 
of  being  the  best  abused  man  of  his  time.  In  Liver- 
pool he  was  stigmatized  as  "  The  Clown  Preacher," 
"The  Arch-Insurrectionist,"  "The  Nigger  Worshiper," 
"The  Free-Love  Monster";  by  his  people  he  was 
adored  almost  as  a  demigod,  certainly  as  an  inspired 
prophet.  So  far  as  character  is  concerned,  men  should 
be  in  a  measure  judged  by  the  impression  which  their 
personality  makes  on  prejudiced  but  frank  and  honest 
minds.  Many  ministers  went  to  the  Brooklyn  Coun- 
cil in  1876,  unsettled  in  their  opinions  and  troubled 
at  heart.  "  But  I  left  the  Council,"  wrote  Rev.  Fran- 
cis N.  Zabriskie,  D.D.,  "  firmly  persuaded  (as  were  all 
who  attended)  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  not  only 
unjustly  accused,  but  that  he  was  one  of  the  noblest 
and,  in  this  matter,  one  of  the  saintliest  souls  which 
the  grace  of  Christ  had  moved  and  moulded."  ' 

An  admirer  of  Mr.  Beecher's,  a  leading  business 
man  of  Chicago.  Mr.  A.  C.  Bartlett,  relates  that,  con- 
versing one  Sunday  morning  with  a  lady  who  believed 
all  sorts  of  crimes  had  been  committed  by  the  pastor 
of  Plymouth  Church,  he  requested  her  to  go  to  Cen- 
tral Music  Hall,  where  he  thought  Mr.  Beecher,  who 
was  in  town,  would  attend  the  preaching  services  of 
Prof.  David  Swing,  and  where,  it  seemed  to  him  very 
likely  Mr.   Beecher    would    be    called    upon    to    offer 

1  "  Life,"  p.  364. 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT    ORBIS    TERRARUM."  517 

prayer.  His  expectations  were  fulfilled  in  every  par- 
ticular. Her  prejudiced  ladyship  was  there,  and  came 
under  the  influence  of  that  great  personality  who 
seemed  to  have  a  firmer  hold  on  the  tenderness  of 
God  than  any  other  follower  of  Christ  since  the  death 
of  the  Beloved  Disciple.  From  that  time  on,  to  at 
least  one  of  his  enemies,  Mr.  Beecher  was  a  good  man. 

As  to  the  fertility  of  Mr.  Beecher's  mind,  there  is 
but  one  opinion.  "  For  full  fifty  years,"  says  Edward 
Pierrepont,  "  he  talked  to  the  public,  and  no  man  said 
so  much,  and  repeated  himself  so  little."  Dr.  Mark 
Hopkins,  who  was  a  wise  judge  of  greatness,  has 
written:  "No  such  instance  of  prolonged  steady 
power  at  one  point,  in  connection  with  other  labors 
so  extended  and  diversified,  and  magnificent  in  re- 
sults, has  ever  been  known."  ' 

Of  Mr.  Beecher's  oratorical  genius  there  is,  and 
will  be,  no  divided  opinion.  Without  the  high  breed- 
ing of  Phillips  in  oratory,  and  of  Lowell  and  Hig- 
ginson  in  literature,  he  surpasses  them  in  warmth  and 
breadth.  No  other  man  of  his  time  had  quite  the 
range  of  Mr.  Beecher's  vocal  powers  at  their  best.  He 
who  could  thunder  could  whisper.  Schiller  said: 
"  Divide  up  the  thunder  into  separate  notes,  and  it 
becomes  a  lullaby  for  children,  but  pour  it  forth  in 
one  continuous  peal,  and  its  royal  sound  will  shake 
the  heavens."  Mr.  Beecher  could  divide  the  thunder 
at  any  instant,  and  change  its  trumpet  peals  into  lul- 
labies. Tears  and  laughter,  pathos  and  humor,  were 
close  together,  and  often  intermingled  in  his  preach- 
ing,   as    in    the  grave-digger  scene  from  "  Hamlet." 


l"  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  58. 


518  HENRY   WARD    BEKCHER. 

Speaking  of  Mr.  Beecher's  advocacy  of  the  Union 
cause  in  England,  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins  said:  "  Probably 
the  world  has  seen  no  grander  instance  of  the  ascen- 
dency of  eloquence  and  of  the  personal  power  of  a 
single  man,  and  he  a  foreigner,  in  the  face  of  preju- 
diced and  excited  mobs."  ' 

The  National  mind,  at  its  greatest  epoch,  found  its 
fullest,  most  powerful,  and  perfect  expression  in  the 
words  of  Lincoln,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Whittier,  Phil- 
lips, Beecher,  and  Mrs.  Stowe.  "  He  was  essentially 
a  National  man,  grasping  all  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings of  a  Continent."  2 

Prof.  Roswell  D.  Hitchcock,  who  frequently  occu- 
pied Mr.  Beecher's  pulpit,  and  who  said:  "If  the  real 
tone  and  temper  of  a  minister  may  be  inferred  from 
the  tone  and  temper  of  his  people,  I  have  abundant 
reason  to  think  well  of  the  Plymouth  preacher  and 
pastor,"  has  recorded  his  admiration  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
sturdy  patriotism.  "  Of  the  old  Puritan  stock,  he 
was  an  American  through  and  through,  and  out  and 
out.  He  had  no  European  affectations — French,  An- 
glican, German  or  any  other.  He  recognized  in  our 
National  history  a  new  democratic  evangel.  In  his 
opinion,  not  Plymouth  Rock  only,  but  Liberty  itself 
was  struck  by  the  shots  that  were  fired  on  Sumter. 
Outside  of  the  Army,  outside  of  the  Government,  no 
Northern  man  did  more  than  he  for  the  Northern 
cause."  3 

But,  though  thoroughly  American,  and  perhaps  for 
that    very    reason,    Mr.    Beecher   has    been   cordially 


1  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  58. 

2  General  Sherman,  "Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  4. 
'  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  73. 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT    ORBIS   TERRARUM."  519 

adopted  in  Great  Britain.  Newman  Hall  has  called 
him  "a  link  of  brotherhood  between  the  two  coun- 
tries"; and  though  he  was  compelled  to  speak  some 
strong  words  in  condemnation  of  the  English  ruling 
classes,  he  was  always  more  than  half  in  love  with  the 
mother  land.  On  his  last  visit  to  England  he  said 
of  her:  "  Through  light  and  dark,  through  good  and 
through  evil,  she  has  proved  herself  to  be  the  right 
hand  of  the  Almighty  God  for  light,  for  liberty,  and 
for  victory." 

Many  men,  naturally  disposed  to  think  highly  of 
Mr.  Beecher's  genius,  have  been  strongly  repelled  by 
what  they  deem  his  theological  eccentricities.  The 
perusal  of  this  volume  it  is  hoped  will  show  some  of 
these  that  Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  thoroughly 
sound  at  heart.  "  Whatever  the  eccentricities  of  his 
career  and  of  his  mind,  the  centrifugal  force,"  as  Dr. 
Leonard  Bacon  has  said,  "  was  checked,  and  the  star 
held  in  its  orbit  by  the  attraction  of  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness."  ' 

Before  his  doctrinal  errancies  are  too  severely  con- 
demned they  should  be  accurately  estimated.  He 
was  a  preacher  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  Christi- 
anity, and  a  vigorous  antagonist  of  many  views  which 
did  not  seem  to  him  true  and  certainly  are  not  the 
common  property  and  inheritance  of  the  catholic 
Church.  His  preaching  of  retribution  may  not  have 
been  adequate,  but  it  was  effective  of  its  kind.  When 
retribution  is  preached  with  great  definiteness  as  to 
place  and  time  and  mode,  it  is  in  peril  of  becoming 
incredible. 

1  "  Life,"  p.  361. 


$2Q  HENRY    WARD    BEECHER. 

Mr.  Beecher  must  be  judged  by  his  temperament, 
his  philosophy,  and  by  his  main  purpose,  which  was 
to  build  up  Christian  manhood.  He  believed  in 
everything  that  would  help  to  make  the  whole  life 
religious  and  holy.  "  I  do  not  believe  a  child  brought 
up  under  my  ministry  in  this  Church  will  ever  see 
flowers  till  he  dies,  without  having  some  thought  of 
religion,  of  the  sanctuary."  ' 

In  1878  and  1879  ne  gave  a  series  of  Sunday-evening 
talks  about  the  early  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
lectures  designed  to  free  the  interpretation  of  the 
Word  of  God  from  superstition  and  to  bring  the 
Bible  back  into  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  was  born. 
He  believed  that  the  more  intelligent  the  knowledge 
of  the  Scriptures,  the  sweeter  they  will  be  to  the 
soul.  Doubtless  he  would  have  been  saved  from 
many  over-statements  if  he  had  not  been  gifted  with 
such  marvelous  spontaneity  of  utterance,  and  had 
been  compelled  to  write  laboriously  his  matured 
thought.  He  had  almost  a  fatal  facility  for  preach- 
ing. 

The  story  of  his  life  must  give  to  many  hearts  a 
new  sense  of  the  delightsomeness  and  glory  of  a  life 
dedicated  to  the  highest  things.  Full  of  abounding 
labors  for  others,  above  most  men  he  knew  what  it 
was  to  find  in  toil  the  highest  liberty,  the  greatest 
cheer,  the  most  abounding  fruitfulness  and  remunera- 
tion. He  once  said:  "  That  is  not  work  alone  that 
brings  sweat  to  the  brow.  Work  may  be  light, 
unburdensome,  as  full  of  song  as  the  merry  brook 
that   turns  the  miller's  wheel;  but   no  wheel  is  ever 


1  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  April,  1893. 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT   ORBIS   TERRARUM."  $21 

turned  without  the  rush  and  weight  of  the  stream 
upon  it." 

He  felt  with  Emerson  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
preacher  to  bring  cheering  and  invigorating  messages 
to  his  fellow  men.  "  One  of  the  most  important  fruits 
of  his  ministry,"  as  Chancellor  Sims,  of  the  Syracuse 
University,  has  said,  "is  the  influence  of  his  preaching 
upon  other  ministers;  to  them  all  over  the  world  he 
has  been  an  inspiration  and  an  interpreter  of  spiritual 
truth." 

He  was  one  of  the  many  streams  of  influence  that 
helped  to  wash  away  the  roughness  of  the  old  New 
England  orthodoxy.  Unitarianism,  which  carried 
truth  in  the  bosom  of  Its  errors,  was  a  movement 
which,  though  lacking  important  elements,  greatly 
modified  the  creeds  and  preaching  of  the  Evangelical 
pulpit.  It  aided  in  restoring  the  balance  to  Christian 
truth  which  leaned  too  decidedly  to  high  Calvinism 
with  its  undue  depression  of  man,  its  intellectual 
dogmatism,  and  its  hiding  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

Another  stream  of  modifying  influence  came  from 
Methodism.  New  England  was  cold  intellectualism; 
Methodism  was  fervent  heart-power.  New  England 
emphasized  the  convictions  ;  Methodism,  the  emo- 
tions. The  revival  movements  which  Wesley  and 
Whitfield  led  reached  the  Atlantic  seaboard  of  Amer- 
ica and  kindled  new  fires  in  later  years,  when  Nettle- 
ton,  Lyman  Beecher,  and  Finney,  imbued  with  the 
zeal  of  missionaries  and  apostles,  awoke  slumbering 
Congregationalism  and  Presbyterianism,  and  gave  to 
preaching  fresh  fervor  and  greater  directness.  For 
some  time  John  Calvin  has  been  sitting  at  the  feet  of 
John  Wesley. 


522  HENRY   WARD     BEECHER. 

Furthermore,  the  Providence  of  God,  in  the  events 
and  changes  of  National  life  in  America,  has  modified 
to  some  extent  the  methods  and  agencies  of  Chris- 
tian teaching.  The  preacher  no  longer  occupies  the 
same  relative  position  in  the  social  organization. 
Lyman  Beecher,  in  1812,  was  a  member  of  the  Stand- 
ing Ecclesiastical  Order  of  Connecticut,  an  estab- 
lished Church — Congregational  not  Episcopalian. 
The  downfall  of  that  order,  which  he  resisted,  but 
afterwards  declared  to  be  the  best  thing  that  ever 
happened  to  the  Church,  led  the  way  to  the  readjust- 
ment of  the  preacher's  place  in  society.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  simply  a  citizen  of  Brooklyn  whom  two 
thousand  and  more  independent  persons  voluntarily 
supported,  and  who  by  his  genius  enlarged  his  con- 
gregation to  the  bounds  of  the  English-speaking 
world.  Still  further,  the  Church  in  our  time  has 
been  providentially  called  to  face  the  great  evils  of 
social  and  political  life.  Lyman  Beecher  himself  was 
a  fearful  innovator  when,  in  his  famous  sermons  on 
intemperance,  he  rebuked  the  drinking  customs  of  the 
clergy  and  the  people,  and  encouraged  Christian  men 
to  labor  for  a  thorough  and  grander  reformation. 
His  son  encountered  greater  opposition  and  accom- 
plished greater  results  by  his  magnificent  and  long- 
continued  arraignment  of  the  monster  crime  of 
slavery. 

Again,  in  God's  Providence,  New  England  has  been 
taken  up  by  the  Divine  hand  and  spread  over  the 
Continent.  The  little  democratic  villages  of  Massa- 
chusetts where  the  population  was  homogeneous  and 
the  minister  was  a  State  officer,  have  been  greatly 
modified.     The  railroads  have  been  mighty  reformers. 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT   ORBIS    TERRARUM."  523 

New  peoples  have  come  to  old  neighborhoods.  In- 
stead of  a  uniform  kindred  population,  the  modern 
preacher  deals  with  heterogeneous  elements.  Con- 
trast the  thousands  who  listened  to  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  persons  gathered  from  many  nations,  living 
in  a  great  city,  breathing  an  atmosphere  quick  with 
excitement,  with  ideas  gathered  from  ten  thou- 
sand sources,  students  in  the  great  university  of 
modern  life,  contrast  them  with  a  congregation 
assembled  two  hundred  years  ago  in  a  Salem  meeting- 
house, living  by  themselves,  fighting  Indians,  discus- 
sing speculative  theology,  divided  by  social  distinc- 
tions, as  Gentleman  and  Good-man,  called  together 
by  a  horn-blower  to  whom  each  family  paid  a  pound 
of  pork,  joining  in  psalms  that  were  as  melodious  as 
an  ancient  hand-organ,  and  listening  for  two  hours  to 
a  solemn  divine  in  a  Geneva  cloak  with  black  gloves 
"  opened  at  the  thumb  and  finger  for  the  handling  of 
the  manuscript."  Such  a  contrast  will  show,  both 
how  different  must  be  the  styles  of  preaching,  and 
how  the  preacher  himself  is  affected  by  the  times  in 
which  he  dwells. 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  representative  as  well  as  the 
leader  of  his  age.  He  who,  as  David  Dudley  Field 
has  said,  spoke  from  more  pulpits  and  platforms  than 
any  other  man  of  his  time,  was  the  child  as  well  as 
the  maker  of  the  epoch  in  which  he  lived. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  will  be  longest  remembered 
in  connection  with  the  Christian  pulpit  from  the  fact 
that,  more  than  any  other  preacher  who  has  ever 
lived,  he  made  men  feel  the  love  of  God.  He  had  an 
abiding  and  all-pervading  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  as  God  in  the  flesh,  expressing  to  man  the  very 


524  HENRV    WARD     BEECHER. 

nature  of  God.  He  believed  that  such  a  Gospel  as 
Christ  taught  would  always  bring  cheer  and  hope  to 
sinful  men.  He  was  careful  not  to  slam  the  door  in 
the  face  of  any  needy  son  of  God.  Among  all  the 
preachers  of  the  world  he  was  the  hope-giver.  He 
never  left  his  hearers  in  the  condition  in  which 
Parson  Simpson's  sermon  left  Mrs.  Stowe's  Sam 
Lawson,  who  reported  it  as  follows:  "  Our  state  by 
nature  is  just  like  this,  we  was  clar  down  in  a  well 
fifty  feet  deep,  the  sides  all  round  nothin'  but  glare 
ice,  but  we're  under  immediate  obligations  to  get  out 
'cause  we  was  free,  voluntary  agents.  But  nobody 
ever  has  got  out  or  would,  unless  the  Lord  reached 
down  and  took  'em,  but  whether  He  would  or  not 
nobody  could  tell.  It  was  all  sovereignty.  There  is 
not  one  in  ten  thousand  that  would  be  saved.  I  felt 
kind  of  empty,  as  a  body  may  say.  Lord  a'  massy, 
said  I  to  myself,  if  that  is  so,  they  are  any  of  them 
welcome  to  my  chance." 

Dr.  Armitage,  of  New  York,  clearly  perceived  that 
all  of  the  greatness  and  goodness  of  Mr.  Beecher,  to 
whom  he  gave  the  first  place  among  the  preachers  of 
his  time,  would  be  finally  discovered  after  he  was 
dead.  He  was  one  of  those  men  "  who  connect  the 
past  with  the  future  and  make  of  themselves  bridges 
for  the  passage  of  multitudes."  ' 

He  was  not  the  founder  of  a  sect.  He  probably  had 
some  sympathy  with  Lessing  who  said  :  "  I  hate  from 
the  bottom  of  my  heart  those  who  wish  to  found 
sects:  it  is  not  error  of  itself  that  makes  the  misfortune 
of  men,  but  sectarian  error,  or  even  sectarian  truth,  were 


'Egglesion,  "  Beecher  Memorial,"  p.  64. 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT    ORBIS    TERRARUM.  525 

it  possible  for  the  truth  to  form  a  sect !  "  Probably  he 
was  the  greatest  apostle  of  that  coming  Christian 
unity,  which,  without  obliterating  natural  differences, 
shall  yet  usher  in  the  Kingdom  of  True  Brotherhood. 
He  realized  and  taught,  as  few  men  in  our  times  have 
taught,  that  in  Jesus  Christ  this  unity  is  found.  "As 
I  grow  older,  I  come  to  feel  as  though  the  future 
results  of  my  work  will  be  out  of  all  proportion  to 
anything  we  see  now.  It  is  the  expectation  of  the 
unknown  results  of  the  future  that  comforts  me  here. 
It  is  very  easy  for  me  to  say  this,  because  I  have  sight 
as  well  as  faith."  ' 

Mr.  Beecher,  who  was  introduced  to  a  Chicago 
audience  by  his  brother  William  as  "  the  greatest 
heretic  of  the  age,"  will  probably  not  be  deemed  so 
heretical  by  the  next  generation,  "  One  New  Year's 
Day,"  writes  Mr.  W.  E.  Davenport,  of  Brooklyn,  "not 
earlier  than  1884,  I  stopped  at  his  house  and  found 
him  conversing  with  callers.  One  of  his  acquaint- 
ances, noticing  a  finely  executed  bust  of  Lyman 
Beecher  looked  at  it  for  a  moment  and  then,  turning 
to  Mr.  Beecher  said,  interrogatively:  '  That  is  a  like- 
ness of  your  father  ? '  '  Yes,'  replied  Mr.  Beecher,  and 
then  meditatively,  'and  it  has  often  been  a  source  of 
satisfaction  to  me  to  know  that  he  was  once  up  for 
trial  on  the  charge  of  heresy.  It  has  seemed  to  me 
that,  in  being  thought  somewhat  unorthodox  myself, 
I  have  simply  been  keeping  in  line  with  hisspirit  and 
the  temper  he  would  approve.  Now,  this  Lyman 
Beecher  is  looked  back  to  as  a  very  model  and  pattern 
of  orthodoxy,  and  his  writings  are   appealed  to  as  of 


Mr.  T.  J.  Ellinwood's  "  Reminiscences." 


526  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

the  safest  and  most  conservative  character;  but  there 
have  been  great  changes  since  his  day,  and  there  are 
bound  to  be  more,  so  that  it  would  not  be  so  much 
of  a  surprise  if  some  future  heresy-hunter,  in  times 
when  theological  thought  has  undergone  further 
developments,  should  look  back  upon  me  as  one  of 
the  main  standbys  of  the  old  school,  and  quote  pass- 
ages out  of  my  sermons  in  support  of  his  ortho- 
doxy, and  say '  (Here  Mr.  Beecher  raised  his  voice 
and  assumed  quite  a  ministerial  air):  'Hear  what 
that  illustrious  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  that  celebrated 
authority  of  Congregationalism,  says,  and  so  make  my 
words  a  barrier  to  all  broader  teaching.'  All  this, 
of  course,  Mr.  Beecher  said  with  a  good-natured 
twinkle  of  the  eyes  that  showed  how  fully  he  appre- 
ciated the  absurdity  of  it  under  present  circumstances 
and  regarded  so  sad  a  misapprehension  of  him  as  a 
remote  possibility." 

When  those  who  knew  Mr.  Beecher  well  get 
together  and  speak  of  him,  they  are  often  reminded 
of  this  or  that  scene  in  which  he  stands  before  them 
in  some  characteristic  attitude.  "  I  remember  him," 
says  one,  "  as  he  spoke  a  comforting  word  in  his  lec- 
ture-room talk,  and  seemed  to  know  the  deepest  needs 
of  my  life."  Another  remembers  him  as  he  appeared 
surrounded  by  a  group  of  ministers,  eager  to  catch 
something  from  his  lips  that  should  reveal  the  sources 
of  his  power,  and  recalls  how  he  said:  "When  I  am 
talking  with  other  folks,  I  often  feel  that  I  am 
nobody,  but  when  I  stand  in  my  pulpit  I  sometimes 
teel  omnipotent." 

Another  says:  "  I  remember  him  as  he  stood  before 
the  Council   of   1876,  and   described   his  experience 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT    ORBIS   TERRARUM."  527 

when  fully  grasping  the  horror  of  the  conspiracy 
which  threatened  to  destroy  him,  and  he  exclaimed  in  a 
voice  which  made  every  one  shudder,  '  I  was  like  a 
man  who,  awakening  at  midnight,  found  himself  in  a 
menagerie  of  serpents.'" 

Another  (Rev.  James  L.  Hill,  D.  D.,  of  Medford, 
Mass.)  says:  "I  remember  him  as  he  stood  in  Pilgrim 
Hall  in  Boston  shortly  after  his  great  trial.  A  large 
company  of  ministers,  some  of  whom  had  been  hos- 
tile, were  gathered  there,  and  the  old  man,  the  white 
locks  making  a  halo  of  splendor  around  his  head, 
prayed  in  that  voice  of  melting  pathos,  and  the  tears 
came  rolling  down  his  checks  as  he  brought  the 
hearts  of  his  friends  and  foes  close  to  the  heart  of  his 
merciful  and  adorable  Saviour." 

How  much  of  Mr.  Beecher's  literary  work  will  sur- 
vive ?  A  great  deal  of  it  has  that  peculiar  quality, 
imagination,  which  Lowell  calls  "  the  great  anti- 
septic." He  is  one  of  the  most  quotable  of  men,  as 
quotable  as  Marcus  Aurelius,  Montaigne,  Bacon,  or 
Emerson.  Five  or  six  volumes  from  his  sermons, 
speeches,  and  essays,  would  contain  too  much  wit 
and  wisdom  for  posterity  to  willingly  let  die.  He 
had  Franklin's  and  Lincoln's  homely  way  of  say- 
ing things,  and  much  of  Thomas  a  Kempis's  spirit- 
uality and  power  of  bringing  consolation  to  bruised 
hearts.  Poet,  moralist,  humorist,  and  master  of 
pithy  proverbs,  why  should  not  Mr.  Beecher  be 
among  the  immortals  in  literature?  A  hundred 
years  hence,  when  the  Republic  has  become  "  the 
most  powerful  and  prosperous  community  ever 
devised  or  developed  by  man,"  and  the  historian 
reviews   the   critical    years    of   the    nineteenth   cen- 


528  HENRY    WARD     BEECHER. 

tury,  in  which  Mr.  Beecher  had  so  conspicuous  a 
part,  he  will  then  be  a  larger  and  loftier  figure  than 
now. 

There  is  no  life  of  this  century  that  is  better  worth 
studying  than  Henry  Ward  Beecher's.  When  men 
are  a  little  further  removed  from  it,  they  will  know 
its  greatness  better.  The  coming  generations  will 
read  his  story,  and  find  it  the  story  of  the  epoch  in 
which  he  lived.  They  will  say:  Here  is  the  man  who 
touched  the  life  of  his  time  at  every  point.  He  was 
a  man  of  original  power  and  of  prophetic  insight.  He 
was  a  man  most  of  whose  nature  was  bathed  in 
wholesome  sunshine,  and  he  taught  that  gloom  and 
sickliness  are  not  synonymous  with  piety,  and  do  not 
contribute  to  the  noblest  Christian  manhood.  He 
raised  great  multitudes  of  men  to  higher  conceptions 
of  true  living.  He  broke  the  shackles  of  the  pulpit, 
and  was  a  pioneer  in  that  new  Christianity  which 
covers  the  whole  domain  of  life.  Liberty  fired  his 
soul,  and  he  spoke  with  the  tongue  of  Patrick  Henry 
and  Samuel  Adams.  The  Gospel  entered  into  his 
very  being,  and  he  preached  Christ  with  Paul's  fer- 
vor, and  with  the  affectionateness  of  the  beloved  Dis- 
ciple. He  found  humanity  manacled  by  traditional- 
ism, and  he  helped  to  deliver  it  into  a  wider  free- 
dom. To  the  sensitive  heart  of  a  woman,  he  added  a 
lion-like  courage,  and  a  Miltonic  loftiness  of  spirit. 
He  bore  no  malice  toward  men,  and  endured  con- 
tumely as  a  good  Soldier  of  the  Cross.  To  the  more 
than  royal  imagination  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  he  added 
a  zeal  as  warm  as  Whitfield's.  In  him  the  wit  of 
Sidney  Smith  was  combined  with  the  common  sense 
of  John  Bunyan.     In  the  annals  of  oratory  his  place 


"SECURUS   JUDICAT    ORBIS    TERRARUM."  529 

is  near  that  of  Demosthenes.  Among  reformers  he 
need  fear  no  comparison  with  Wendell  Phillips,  John 
Bright,  Mazzini,  or  Charles  Sumner.  In  moral  ge- 
nius for  statesmanship  he  was  the  brother  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and,  in  the  annals  of  the  pulpit,  he  can  only 
be  mentioned  with  the  greatest  names — Chrysostom, 
Bernard,  Luther,  Wesley,  Chalmers,  Spurgeon.  He 
was  a  noble  builder  in  the  Republic  of  God,  the  great 
Church  of  the  Future. 

Toiling  with  prodigious  industry  on  earth,  Mr. 
Beecher's  heart  was  for  long  years  in  Heaven.  There 
came  to  him  visions  brighter  than  those  that  cheered 
Christian  and  Hopeful  from  the  Delectable  Mount- 
ains. He  went  down  into  the  deep  river,  trusting  in 
the  sure  promises  of  God.  Had  he  been  able,  in  his 
last  hours,  to  speak  what  was  in  his  heart,  he  might 
well  have  spoken  what  Bunyan  puts  into  the  mouth 
of  Mr.  Valiant— for  Truth  as  he  went  down  into  the 
dark  waters.  The  passage  from  the  great  prose-poet 
of  England,  which  General  Hawley  quoted  when  he 
announced  the  death  of  General  Sherman  to  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States,  may  well  linger  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  now,  in  this  book,  part  company  with 
Henry  Ward  Beecher. 

"  When  he  understood  it  (that  his  summons  had 
come)  he  called  to  his  friends  and  told  them  of  it. 
'  Then,'  said  he,  '  I  am  going  to  my  fathers;  and 
though,  with  great  difficulty  I  got  hither,  yet  I  do  not 
repent  me  of  the  trouble  I  have  been  at  to  arrive 
where  I  am.  My  sword  I  give  to  him  who  shall  suc- 
ceed me  in  my  pilgrimage,  and  my  courage  and  skill 
to  him  who  can  get  them.  My  marks  and  scars  I 
carry  with  me  to  be  a  witness  for  me  that  I  have 
34 


53©  HENRY   WARD     BEECHER. 

fought  His  battles  who  will  now  be  my  Redeemer.' 
When  the  day  that  he  must  go  hence  was  come,  many 
accompanied  him  to  the  river  side,  into  which  as  he 
went  he  said,  '  Death  where  is  thy  sting?'  and  as  he 
went  down  deeper  he  said,  '  Grave  where  is  thy  vic- 
tory? "     So  he  passed  over,  and  all  the  trumpets 

SOUNDED  FOR  HIM  ON  THE  OTHER  SIDE." 


INDEX. 


Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  on  the  Friday-evening  meetings,  136; 
characterization  of  Beecher's  English  speeches,  340;  why 
Mr.  Beecher  was  liable  to  misinterpretation,  397 ;  on  Mr, 
Beecher's  faults,  458;  Beecher's  sermons  philosophical,  501. 

Abolition  merchants  boycotted,  193. 

Adams's,  Chas.  Francis,  compromise,  258. 

Allon,  Rev.  Dr.,  of  London,  and  some  parishioners  study  the 
Beecher  trial,  395. 

American  Anti-Slavery  Society's  meetings  in  New  York 
broken  up,  191. 

American  Unitarian  Association  formed  in  1825,  36. 

Amherst  College  and  her  greatest  son,  44. 

Ancestry  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  10-12. 

Attendance  at  Plymouth  Church,  120. 

Bacon,  Dr.  L,  Moderator   of   National    Advisory   Committee, 

403. 
Battle  in  U.  S.  Congress  over  Clay's  Compromise  Act,  184. 
Beecher,  Catherine,  21,30. 
Beecher,  Charles,  23,  56,  139. 
Beecher  Children,  estimate  of  their  mother,  4-7. 
Beecher,  David,  11. 
Beecher,  Edward,  21. 
Beecher,  George,  21. 
Beecher,  George,  son  of  Henry  Ward,  Death  and  burial  of,  94. 


532  INDEX.  r 

Beecher,  Hannah,  10. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  birth  of,  3 ;  character  inheritance  from 
his  father  and  mother,  2,  3,  12;  ancestors  of,  3,4;  resem- 
blance to  his  mother,  4;  finds  the  correspondence  between 
his  father  and  mother,  5  ;  childhood  contemporaries,  15,  16; 
a  compound  of  opposite  characteristics,  16;  childhood,  18- 
27;  at  school,  28-35;  progress  not  satisfactory,  29;  his  love 
of  nature,  31,  32;  impressions  of  Sunday  on  the  boy's  mind, 
33—35  ;  in  Boston,  37-40  ;  Mount  Plaesant  Institute,  40-43  ; 
in  Amherst  College,  44-54 ;  engagement  to  Miss  Eunice 
White  Bullard,  49;  occupations  during  college  years,  50-51; 
enthusiasm  for  phrenology,  53-54;  in  Lane  Theological 
Seminary,  55;  lectures  on  temperance  and  phrenology,  58; 
editor  of  the  Cincinnati  Journal,  59 ;  meditations  recorded 
in  an  old  journal,  60;  manifestation  of  God,  63-67  ;  gradu- 
ates from  Lane  Seminary,  69;  call  to  Lawrenceburg,  Ky.,  69; 
marriage  73  ;  early  married  life,  74  ;  ordained,  76  ;  call  to 
Indianapolis,  78,80;  the  Western  evangelist,  80-91  ;  life  and 
methods  at  Indianapolis,  85-88  ;  revivals,  89-91  ;  a  sick 
household,  92-94 ;  editor  of  Farmer  and  Gardener,  95 ; 
sermons  on  slavery,  96,  97  ;  lectures  to  young  men,  98-103  ; 
call  to  Brooklyn,  104;  addresses  the  American  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  in  New  York,  106  ;  formation  of  Plymouth 
Church,  106  ;  Plymouth  Church  organized,  107  ;  invited  to 
become  its  pastor,  107;  accepts  the  call,  108;  first  sermon  in 
Brooklyn,  in;  examination  by  the  Council,  in;  publicly 
installed,  11 1  ;  overflowing  audiences,  116;  speaks  for  the 
Edmonson  sisters,  117,  118;  review  of  beginnings  of  his 
ministry  in  Brooklyn,  119;  church  destroyed  by  fire,  119; 
new  and  larger  church  built,  120;  a  representative  congre- 
gation, 121  ;  relation  to  great  national  events,  123;  services 
in  Plymouth  Church,  126;  prayers  in  Plymouth  Church,  128- 
130;  the  organ  in  Plymouth  Church,  131  ;  domestic  sorrow, 
133;  Friday-evening  meetings,  133-137;  social  features,  137; 
morning  prayer-meetings.  138;  first  voyage  to  England, 
138-144;  return  to  America,  145;  articles  in  New  York 
Independent,     145  ;      cordially     welcomes     Kossuth,     146  ; 


index.  533 

revivals,  146-149;  political  and  social  reformer,  150; 
summers  in  the  country,  1 51-152;  the  Plymouth  Collection 
Hymn  Book,  152-155;  phenomenal  genius  and  novel 
methods,  156;  discourse  on  reporters,  157;  causes  of  popu- 
larity and  unpopularity,  156-162 ;  battle  for  freedom,  the, 
163-178;  speeches  on  freedom,  slavery,  and  the  Civil  War, 
168;  article  in  The  Independent,  "  Shall  we  compromise?" 
179-184;  on  the  duties  to  fugitive  slaves,  186-188  :  intense 
hatred  in  slavery  circles  against  him,  189;  Wendell  Phillips, 
prevented  speaking  in  New  York,  delivers  his  address  in 
Plymouth  Church,  191-192  ;  speech  before  the  American 
and  Foreign  Anti-Slavery  Society,  194  ;  attacks  the  Fugitive- 
Slave  Law,  195-199;  rebukes  John  Mitchell  for  his  utterances 
on  the  slavery  question,  205  ;  the  crisis,  207  ;  lectures  for  the 
freedom  of  Kansas,  210-212;  speaks  against  the  assault 
committed  on  Chas.  Sumner,  213  ;  editorial  in  The  Inde- 
pendent, "  On  which  side  is  peace  ?  "  217-220 ;  enters  actively 
the  campaign  of  1856,  220-226  ;  sermon  on  The  Nation's 
Duty  to  Slavery,  228-237  ;  collections  in  Plymouth  Church, 
to  free  slaves,  238-245  ;  helps  in  the  election  of  Lincoln,  246  ; 
thanksgiving  sermon  after  the  election,  247-257  ;  sermon  on 
Jan.  4,  1861,  259-262;  war,  264;  a  strange  Sunday,  264;  a 
great  leader,  266 ;  sermon  preached  during  the  siege  of 
Sumter,  267-272  ;  toiling  for  liberty  and  the  Union,  273 ; 
sermon  on  The  National  Flag,  275-277 ;  sermon  on  The 
Camp,  Its  Dangers,  and  Duties,  277 ;  sermon  on  The  Modes 
and  Duties  of  Emancipation,  278-279;  urges  the  Govern- 
ment to  announce  a  clear  anti-slavery  programme,  281-286  ; 
visit  to  Europe  in  1863,  287;  receives  news  of  the  surrender  T 
of  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg  in  Paris,  293 ;  urged  to  speak 
in  England,  294  ;  speech  in  Manchester,  299 ;  in  Glasgow, 
309;  in  Edinburgh,  317 ;  in  Liverpool,  320 ;  in  Exeter  Hall, 
London,  330;  end  of  the  public  campaign  in  England,  339  ; 
return  to  America,  345  ;  receptions  in  Brooklyn  and  New 
York,  346  ;  sails  for  Charleston  with  Garrison  and  others, 
349 ;  address  at  the  raising  of  the  American  flag  over 
the  walls  of   Fort   Sumter,  350-354;  opposed   to  humbling 


1534  INDEX. 

the  South,  356 ;  lecture,  "  The  North  Victorious,"  357 ; 
letter,  disfavoring  exclusion,  to  convention  of  soldiers  and 
sailors  at  Cleveland,  358;  resigns  as  editor  of  The  Indepen- 
dent, 358;  addresses  the  Congregational  Council  of  1865,  in 
Boston,  362  ;  "  Norwood,"  367 ;  his  marvelous  power  with 
words,  369;  first  course  of  twelve  lectures  on  Preaching,  in 
Yale  College,  371  ;  the  silver  wedding  of  Plymouth  Church, 
372-379;  the  long  darkness,  380;  accused  by  Theodore  Til- 
ton,  383;  suffering  during  next  four  years,  385;  Tilton  pub- 
lishes a  statement,  387  ;  letter  to  committee  of  investigation, 
388;  completely  exonerated  by  committee,  390;  meeting  in 
Plymouth  Church  to  adopt  report,  391  ;  Tilton  begins  action 
for  damages  in  Brooklyn  City  Court,  393 ;  jury  disagrees, 
395  ;  public  opinion  in  favor  of  Beecher,  396-398  ;  words  to 
his  congregation  before  meeting  of  Advisory  Council,  402; 
meeting  of  Advisory  Council,  402-413;  address  of  welcome, 
403;  examination  by  Council,  408;  Plymouth  Church  sus- 
tained and  its  pastor  held  innocent,  412;  lecture  tours  more 
frequent  than  formerly,  416  ;  new  light  on  old  problems,  420; 
resigns  his  membership  in  the  Congregational  Association 
of  Ministers  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  421  ;  statement  of 
his  theological  opinions,  421-425  ;  letter  to  Alfred  Rose,  427; 
pulpit  thunderer  and  plumed  knight,  429-434;  last  visit  to 
England,  435;  enthusiastic,  receptions,  436  ;  return  to  Brook- 
lyn, 442  ;  stricken  ill,  443  ;  death,  March  8,  1887,  444 ;  funeral 
services,  445-449  ;  Rev.  Chas.  H.  Hall's  sermon,  447  ;  burial 
in  Greenwood  Cemetery,  448 ;  qualities  that  made  him  a 
man,  450-453  ;  personal  habits,  454  ,455  ;  traits  of  character, 
456-464;  his  morbid  streak,  465-467;  "  Boscobel,"  country 
residence  in  Peekskill,  467,  468 ;  a  lover  of  books  and  pic- 
tures, 468,  469;  fondness  for  jewels  and  music,  469;  wit  and 
humor,  470-472 ;  sociability,  472-474 ;  as  a  letter-writer, 
474,  475;  the  eloquent  orator,  478-489;  the  preacher  of 
Christ,  490-512  ;  unveiling  of  statue  in  Brooklyn,  513,514; 
the  fertility  of  his  mind,  517;  his  oratorical  genius,  517-519; 
preacher  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  Christianity,  519-526; 
literary  work,  527,  528;  a  life  worth  studying,  ,28-530. 


INDEX.  535 

Beecher,  John,  10. 

Beecher,  Joseph,  n. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  last  words  to  his  dying  wife,  i ;  king  of  the 
New  England  pulpit,  8 ;  striking  eccentricities  of  character, 
9;  ancestry  of,  10-12  ;  preacher  in  East  Hampton,  L.  I.,  13; 
way  of  treating  itinerant  Methodist  preachers,  13  ;  as  a  boy, 
15;    marries  Miss   Harriet  Porter,  21;   pastor  of   Hanover 
Street    Congregational    Church,    Boston,    36 ;     president   of 
Lane  Theological  Seminary  and  removal  to  Cincinnati,  55 
students'  exodus  on  account  of  his  "  slavery  position,"  58 
meets  his  eleven  children,  59  ;  death  of  his  second  wife,  60 
trials  and  tribulations,  61-63  '<  death,  2. 

Beecher,  Nathaniel,  11. 

Beecher,  Roxana  Foote,  dedicates  her  sons  missionaries  of 
Christ,  1;  death  of,  2;  loved  by  her  children,  4-7;  her 
womanly  qualities  and  charms,  6. 

Beecher,  Thomas  K.,  32,  39. 

Bennett,  James  Gordon,  editorials  on  the  slavery  question,  191. 

Birth  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  3. 

Birth  of  leaders  in  anti-slavery  struggle  and  Civil  War,  15,, 

Blaine,  James  G.,  156,429. 

Bowen,  Henry  C,  106,  108,  192,  193. 

Boyhood  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  18-35. 

Bright,  John,  133. 

Brooklyn,  New  York,  Beecher  called  to,  104. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  compared  with  Beecher,  156,  493-494. 

Brooks,  Preston  S.,  assaults  Sumner,  212. 

Brown's,  John,  attack  on  Harper's  Ferry,  228. 

Bullard,  Eunice  White,  future  wife  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  49. 

Burial  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in   Greenwood  Cemetery,  448. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  3. 

Cable,  Geo.  W.,  450. 

Calhoun,  John  C,  179. 

Call  to  Brooklyn,  104. 

Causes  of  popularity  and  unpopularity.  156-162. 

Celebrities  of  anti-slavery  struggle,  birth  of,  15. 


536  INDEX. 

Childhood  contemporaries  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  15,  16. 

Childhood  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  18-35. 

Clark,  James  Freeman,  199. 

Clay's  Compromise  Act,  Battle  in  United  States  Congress  over, 

184. 
College  days  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  44,  55. 
Cook,  Joseph,  on  Beecher  as  a  reformer,  163;  summary  of  result 

of  Beecher's  trial,  381  ;  on  Beecher  in  England,  514. 
Cunningham,  J.  L.,  Beecher's  influence  on  Great  Britain  as  a 

nation,  341. 
Cutter,  William  T.,  105,  106. 

Davenport,  W.  E.,  525. 

Death  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  444. 

Dickens,  Chas.,  praises  Plymouth  Church  as  an  audience-room, 

125. 
Dickinson,  Anna,  speaks  in  Plymouth  Church,  160. 
Douglass,  Frederick,  speaks  in  Plymouth  Church,  193. 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  proposes  to  repeal  Missouri  Compromise, 

205. 

Edmonson  sisters  freed  and  educated,  117,  118. 

England,  Beecher's  first  voyage  to,  138-144;  second  voyage  to, 
287-344  ;  last  voyage  to,  435-441- 

Evarts,  William  M.,  speaks  against  assault  on  Charles  Sum- 
ner, 213. 

Family  reunion,  59, 

Father  of  the  man,  28. 

Finney,  Charles  G.,  meetings  of  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  New 

York  broken  up,  191. 
Foote,  Elisha,  father  of  Roxana  Foote  Beecher,  3. 
Freedom,  battle  for,  163-178. 
Fremont,  John  C,  nominated  for  President,  216. 
Friday-night  talks,  133-137. 

Fugitive-Slave  Law  attacked  by  Beecher,  195-199. 
Funeral  services  on  the  death  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  445- 

449- 


index.  537 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  168. 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  on  progress  of  civilization,  120. 
Greeley,  Horace,  takes  council  with  Beecher,  238. 
Green,  Rev.  Beriah,  first  presiding  officer  of  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society,  164. 

Hale,  David,  106. 

Hall,  Newman,  341,  519. 

Hall,  Rev.  Chas.  H.,  conducts  the  funeral  service  on  death  of 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  445. 
Haweis,  Rev.  H.  R.,  estimate  of  Beecher,  515. 
Hill,  Rev.  James  L.,  527. 
Historic  church,  A,  117. 
Hitchcock,  Prof.  Roswell  D.,  518. 
Hopkins,  Dr.  Mark,  on  Mr.  Beecher's  advocacy  of  the  union 

cause  in  England,  518. 
Howard,  John  R.,  on   Mr.  Beecher's  great  learning,  161  ;  on 

his  truthfulness,  409. 
Howard,  John  T.,  106,  108. 

Hudson,  Frederick,  on  Beecher  as  a  great  leader,  266. 
Hunt,  Richard  M.,  architect  of  Beecher's  monument,  514. 
Humphrey,  Dr,  Heman,  president  of  Amherst  College,  44. 

In  the  great  valley  of  decision,  55. 

Jay,  William,  164. 

Kossuth  in  America,  200. 

Lane  Theological  Seminary,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  at,  55. 

Lawrenceburg,  Ky.,  72. 

Leaders  in  anti-slavery  struggle  and  Civil  War,  Birth  of,  15. 

Leaders  of  religious  and  political  reform  in  1847,  113. 

Leading  preachers  of  Brooklyn  in  1846,  no. 

Lectures  to  young  men,  98-103. 

Lenox,  Mass.,  Beecher's  farm,  151. 

Liddon,  Canon,  126. 

Light  in  America's  dark  age,  a,  189. 

Lincoln  nominated  for  President,  245 ;  elected  President,  247. 


53^  INDEX. 

Lind,  Jenny,  Beecher's  opinion  of,  145. 

Litchfield,   Conn.,   birthplace    of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  19; 

Sunday  at,  33. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  in  England,  343. 

Marriage  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  73. 

Merrill's,  Dr.  J.  G.,  Description  of  Congregational  Council  of 

1865,  361. 
Merriman,  George  S.,  492. 
Ministry,  The  private  and  peaceful,  132. 
Missouri  Compromise  repealed,  208. 
Mitchell's,  John,  idea  of  liberty,  204. 
Moody,  D wight  L.,  137. 
Murphy,  Francis,  estimate  of  Beecher,  496. 

New  England  pulpit,  The  king  of  the,  8. 
New  England,  residences  of  distinguished  divines,  18. 
New  England  womanhood,  The  flower  of,  I. 
New  lights  on  old  problems,  420. 

Opening  of  new  Plymouth  Church,  120. 
Ordination  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  76. 
Outline  of  a  sermon,  507. 

Parker,  Dr.  Joel,  threatens  to  sue  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe 

for  libel,  203. 
Parker,  Theodore,  tribute  to  motherhood,  7. 
Parton's,  James,  description  of  Beecher  in  his  lecture-room, 

134. 
Peril  and  escape,  The  boy's,  36. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  extract  of  sermon  on  the  death  of,  46;  the 

Abolition  leader,  167  ;  speaks  in  Plymouth  Church,  191,  192. 
Pierrepont,  Edward,  on  the  fertility  of  Mr.  Beecher's  mind,  517. 
Plymouth  Church,  formation  of,  106;  organized,  107;   Henry 

Ward  Beecher  installed  as  pastor,  1 1 1 ;  destroyed  by  fire, 

119;  rebuilt,  120;  representative  congregation,  121;  relation 


index.  539 

of,  and  its  pastor,  to  great  national  events,  123;  description 
124;  services,  126;  prayers,  128-130;  the  organ,  131;  Fri- 
day-evening meetings,  133-137;  social  features,  137;  morn- 
ing prayer-meetings,  138;  training  and  growth,  132-138; 
Anna  Dickinson  speaks  in,  160;  Wendell  Phillips  speaks  in, 
191-192;  Frederick  Douglass  speaks  in,  193;  collections  to 
free  slaves,  238-245 ;  the  silver  wedding,  372-379 ;  meeting 
to  adopt  report  of  committee  of  investigation  of  Mr. 
Beecher's  conduct,  391;  meeting  of  National  Advisory  Council, 
402-413;  sustained  by  Council,  412;  Henry  Ward  Beecher's 
body  lies  in  state,  446  ;  funeral  services,  446-449. 

Plymouth  Collection  Hymnal,  The,  152. 

Popularity  and  unpopularity,  Causes  of,  156-162. 

Porter,  Pres.  Noah,  letter  to  Mr.  Beecher,  390. 

Pratt,  N.  D.,  reminiscenses,  159,  221,  241,  243,  347,  393,  415, 
430,  460,  464,  466,  472. 

Private  and  peaceful  ministry,  The,  132. 

Pulpit,  A  strong,  92. 

Pulpit  ihunderer  and  plumed  knight,  429. 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  speaks  at  Woodstock  Commons,  Conn., 
221 ;  takes  counsel  with  Beecher,  238. 

Raymond,  Rossiter  W.,  estimates  of  Mr.  Beecher's  character, 
405,  409,  510. 

Revivals,  at  Indianapolis,  89;  early,  104;  conduct  of,  philoso- 
phy of,  subject  to  law,  146-149. 

Robertson,  Rev.  Frederick  W.,  40. 

Sage,  Henry  W.,  founder  of  the  Lyman  Beecher  Lectureship 
of  Yale  College,  371. 

Salisbury,  Conn.,  Vacation  at,  151. 

Scott,  Benjamin,  chairman  of  the  Exeter  Hall  meeting,  Lon- 
don. 330. 

Schaff,  Dr.  Philip,  letter  to  Beecher,  425. 

School-days  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  28-35. 

Shearman,  Thomas  G.,  400. 

Sick  household,  A,  92. 


540  INDEX. 

Spurgeon,  Chas.  Haddon,  compared  with  Beecher,  126,  490, 

491. 

Statement  of  Beecher's  theological  opinions,  421. 

Storrs,  Dr.  R.  S.,  preaches  the  sermon  on  organization  of 
Plymouth  Church,  107 ;  on  Mr.  Beecher's  influence  in  Eng- 
land, 329. 

Stowe,  Prof.  Caivin  E.,  brother-in-law  to  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
56. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  description  of  her  mother,  4,  5 ; 
recollections  of  Henry  Ward  at  funeral  of  his  mother,  21 ; 
at  school  with  Henry  Ward,  28;  the  West  and  Henry  Ward, 
83;  educates  the  Edmonson  sisters,  118;  publication  of 
"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  200,  203;  letter  to  George  Eliot,  396; 
another  letter  regarding  her  brother,  397. 

Sumner,  Chas.,  enters  the  Senate,  201 ;  assaulted  by  Preston 
S.  Brooks,  212. 

Sunday  in  the  Beecher  home,  33. 

Talmage,  T.  DeWitt,  126. 

Taylor,  Dr.  Wm.  M.,  on  Mr.  Beecher's  eloquence,  327. 

Testing  his  weapons,  69. 

Thatcher,  Moses,  first  appeal  of  Anti-Slavery  Society  written 
by,  164. 

Theological  celebrities  of  1837,  71. 

Thompson,  Joseph  P.,  speaks  at  Congregational  Council  of 
1865,  361. 

Tilton,  Theodore,  accuses  Mr.  Beecher,  383;  publishes  a  state- 
ment, 387;  begins  action  for  damages  in  Brooklyn  City 
Court,  393  ;  jury  disagrees,  395. 

Training  and  growth  of  Plymouth  Church,  133-138. 

United  States  of  America,  condition  of  the,  in  1837,  70. 

Ward,  Andrew,  4. 

Warner.  Chas.  Dudley,  opinion  of  Mr.  Beecher's  intellectual 
brilliancy,  483. 


INDEX.  541 

Willcox,  Prof.  George  B.,  on  Mr.  Beecher  as  the  foremost 
preacher  of  this  continent,  495. 

Wright,  Rev.  Wm.  Burnet,  regarding  Mr.  Beecher's  thorough- 
ness of  study,  456. 

Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,  9,  132,  135, 139, 146,  154,371. 


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